


snakes are biting at my heels

by Swira



Series: snakes are biting at my heels [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fanart, M/M, Punisher Season 2, post Daredevil season 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-15 17:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17533505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swira/pseuds/Swira
Summary: all you need to know it that the file for this on my computer is called “Punisher season 2 but GAY”





	1. Episode 1

**Author's Note:**

> yo i wrote this in one day and also english isn’t my first language so it has a million typos and i dont care ok thanks for reading i hope you have a good time
> 
> Edit: I now have some awesome art to add to this thanks to a friend of mine!!! thank you so muuuuch, you know who you are <3

 

———

Matt

———

“This is nice,” Matt says nonchalantly, considering the small motel room from where he’s standing with his bag still slung around his shoulder. 

“Yeah, sure.” He can hear in Frank’s voice that he’s rolling his eyes at him as he closes the door behind him.

He chuckles lightly, concedes, “It’s better than the last one, at least.”

“Last one had a fuckin’ rat’s nest in one of the mattresses, Murdock, raise your bar.”

Frank goes to throw his own bag on his bed then throws himself next to it. He lets out a groan from where his face is mashed into his pillow.

“This one seems nice enough for you,” Matt says, amused.

“Well, I’d settle for anything after driving for this long,” Frank says, rolling on his back to look at him. He does sound pretty tired, and Matt can tell he’s tense from staying in the same position for too long. It’s a good thing they stopped when they did.

“I’d offer to drive, but I know you don’t want me too,” Matt says, shrugging.

“Funny, Murdock,” Frank snorts, then pauses, considering. “Wait, can you—”

“I can’t drive,” Matt cuts him off, huffing a laugh. “Or at least I wouldn’t risk it.”

“Your freaky powers aren’t all that great, huh,” Frank grumbles.

“I can _try_ , if you want,” Matt says, going to sit down on his own bed, unable to keep a playful smile from pulling at his mouth.

“Shut up, I ain’t dying in a stupid car crash,” Frank mumbles, but by the sound of it he thinks it’s pretty funny too. He snorts. “And what if we got pulled over? Can you imagine?”

Matt barks out a laugh at the idea. “Yeah, it would be hard to explain.”

They settle into easy silence for a while and Matt lays down, getting comfortable fairly quickly. Even without driving, so many hours spent on the road took their toll on him too, and he’s almost falling asleep when he hears Frank shuffle on his bed, straightening up.

“I need a beer,” he mutters.

“Don’t you always?” Matt says without opening his eyes.

Frank ignores him and gets up. “There’s a place right next to the motel, wanna go check it out?”

Matt shakes his head lazily. “I’m good. Think I’m gonna sleep a bit. Maybe I’ll meet up with you later.”

Frank hums in acknowledgment and Matt hears him open the door, but he doesn’t leave right away, instead he mutters, “Fuckin’ old man, takin’ naps.” Matt knows he knows he can hear him, so he chucks a spare pillow at him. It hits the door right where Frank’s head was a second ago.

———

Matt wakes up sore from sleeping with his neck bent at a weird angle and checks his phone for the time. He’s slept a little less than two hours, and the room is still empty.

He listens to the motel’s surroundings, having no trouble pinpointing the bar Frank mentioned earlier. Music’s coming from the building, as are the voices and heartbeats of many people and the usual sounds these places are filled with: clinking glasses, shoes sticking on floors, people making out in dark corners. All of it is a little much, even from far away, and he hesitates to go. It’s not like Frank needs him to be there.

But the room is desperately empty, and as much as it bothers him to admit it, he’s gotten used to Frank’s almost constant presence in the last few weeks. Checking the place out can’t hurt, and it’s pretty late anyway, it’s not like they’re going to stay there long.

He swaps the sweater he’s worn all day for a fresh one and gets his coat before leaving.

The fresh night air wakes him up properly and he takes his time walking up to the bar, enjoying it as long as he can before he reaches it. It stinks of alcohol and sweat inside, but it’s also far from the worst he’s ever smelled. The place seems nice enough, all the patrons sounding like they’re regulars from around here. The band is decent, and the music is almost enough to distract him from picking up all the conversations around him.

Someone bumps into him and he mumbles an apology, turning his face down by reflex so they don’t notice the empty look in his eyes, before remembering he’s wearing his glasses. He’s gotten used to wearing them less and less these days, the only person he really interacts with being Frank, and it’s almost surprising he even thought to wear them this time. As for his cane, it’s in the back of the car. Has been for a while, now. It tends to bring attention to him, and he’d rather avoid that if he can help it.

He makes his way into the crowd, listening carefully until he finally hears a familiar heartbeat, soon coupled with a gruff but polite voice.

“Could I get another beer, ma’am?”

He adjust his trajectory and makes his way to the bar, where Frank is sipping on his new drink. He hears the moment he notices him, his stance shifting slightly, a breath leaving his lungs in a specific way.

“Done with your beauty sleep?” he asks as Matt comes to stand next to him, leaning on the counter.

“Yeah, you should try it, it might do something for you,” Matt quips back.

Frank chuckles and takes another sip from his beer. “What is it with you all, today?”

Matt raises a questioning eyebrow at him, silently asking him to elaborate.

Frank vaguely indicates the crowd with his chin. “Got called ‘Rough Road’ by some kid not ten minutes ago,” he says.

Matt frowns, confused. “‘Rough Road’?”

Frank smiles. “My face looks like forty miles of it, apparently,” he says.

Matt chokes a little but can’t help a surprised laugh. Frank’s laughing too, so he forgives himself.

“Come on, you’re not that bad,” he says, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“Fuck you, Murdock, how would you know that,” Frank says, grinning.

“Can I get you anything?” the barmaid asks, cutting his next sentence short.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” he says, but before he has a second to think about what he wants, Frank speaks up.

“Scotch for him, please.”

The barmaid nods and has his drink ready a few seconds later. He thanks her then tilts his head Frank’s way.

“I’m blind, not mute,” he remarks without heat.

Frank hums, taking a sip of his beer and turning his attention to the crowd, clearly knowing that he isn’t really offended. Maybe he even knows Matt’s actually a little pleased that he knows him that well.

Matt tastes his drink - it’s cheap stuff, but it’s what he’s always drunk; he likes it - then joins Frank in observing the crowd in his own way. The band is moving on to a new song, people are leaving, some are arriving just now. It seems like the place isn’t going to close soon.

“What did you do to that kid?” he asks after a while.

“Mh, what?” Frank turns his head his way, sounding like he’s been pulled out of his thoughts.

“The Rough Road kid, what’d you do to them to deserve that?” he says, smiling privately in his glass.

Frank shrugs. “Dunno, looked at her wrong I guess? Why d'you immediately assume it’s something I did?”

Matt tries to give him a meaningful look, and judging by Frank’s laugh he succeeds.

“For once, it wasn’t anything I did,” he says, pointing his beer at him before taking a sip.

He pauses for a moment, thinking. His voice is softer when he continues, “She looked a little freaked, I dunno. Couldn’t have been older than seventeen, maybe she was nervous because she thought she was gonna get kicked out.”

Matt hums thoughtfully. He’s about to say something when he picks up a conversation only a few feet away and tenses.

“—know how this works. You don’t have a drink with me and keep my seven bucks.”

The man’s voice is slurred, his heartbeat slowed by the alcohol while the barmaid’s just noticeably picked up nervously. She’s still fairly calm, probably used to that kind of thing, but Matt still tunes into their conversation by reflex, unable to help himself. Frank does the same only a second later, having noticed his change in behavior and found the cause of it.

“I don’t wanna give you this money, I want you to have a drink with me,” the man continues, leaning on the counter towards the barmaid.

She looks totally unimpressed, keeping on wiping glasses as she answers flatly, “Yeah, why’s that?”

He leers at her. “‘Cause I think you’re a good-looking woman.” He leans further. “‘Cause I’m wondering how far those tattoos go.”

Matt picks up on the rising nervousness of the woman. She doesn’t say anything, and the man goes on, giving her a nasty smirk.

“Cause I’d like to lick ’em. And I think, maybe, you might like that too.”

The barmaid sighs. “You never know,” she says, setting a glass down and picking up another. “But I gotta work. And there’s plenty of ladies here with tattoos.” She vaguely indicates the dance floor, dismissing him.

She starts to move away but the man snatches her arm.

“Come on, at least gimme your number— and your name,” he slurs. “I’m Johnny.”

The woman’s voice is suddenly way less polite when she answers. “Johnny. You gonna have to let go of my arm, now.”

Matt has been ready to pounce since the moment he’s sensed Johnny’s grab coming, but Frank beats him to it.

“Hey, hey. Lady’s tryin’ to work,” he says, knocking on the counter to grab the man’s attention. “How’s she gonna pour drinks with you holding onto her arm? Let go.”

He sounds almost disinterested, but Matt knows better, and he can also tell there’s a tension in his body that wasn’t there a minute earlier. His heartbeat is steady, but it also is when he’s pointing a gun at someone or shooting them, so it doesn’t really mean anything.

Thankfully, the man lets go of the barmaid.

“Thank you,” Frank says, feigning to turn his attention elsewhere.

Matt hears Johnny’s heartbeat pick up, irritation settling in. He gets ready to move if needed, even though he knows Frank is in no way as unguarded as he makes himself seem.

“You alright?” he hears Frank ask.

The barmaid’s busying herself with making drinks again. She sighs, unimpressed. “Yeah, he’s just a drunk.”

Johnny huffs.

“I must be if i thought you were worth my time. Skank,” he mutters, and Matt hears Frank’s little exhale, the way he closes his fist once then releases it. He’s been making progress controlling his mood, lately, he’s really been. Would be a shame if he threw all of it away for a random douchebag.

Matt tries to translate that thought into a light, warning touch to Frank’s shoulder, hoping he also remembers that it would be better if they didn’t get into too much trouble.

“That’s classy,” Frank simply says, making sure it’s loud enough for Johnny to hear.

Matt sighs. Frank’s weird chivalrous instincts were going to be the death of them.

“Sorry, did you say somethin’?” Johnny asks.

Frank looks at him, nods once. “Yeah.”

Johnny gets up and Matt tenses up. He moves at the same time as Frank, to stand where he can intervene if needed - though more by reflex than by real worry of having to. He knows Frank won’t do anything too severe; the guy’s just a dick who’s had too much to drink.

Frank sets into parade rest as Johnny gets next to him and starts poking him in the shoulder. Matt can vaguely hear him nagging him, but he’s more focused on listening to Frank’s heartbeat and breathing. The only tell he picks up is a short, annoyed sigh Frank lets out through his nose before he grabs Johnny’s finger and twists.

“You like that, mh?” he says as Johnny lets out a pained groan. Frank lets him go, grumbles, “Get outta here,” as the man stumbles a couple feet back

Matt hears Johnny’s heartbeat quicken with pain and anger as he staggers for a second, before grabbing Frank’s empty beer. He smashes it against the counter and immediately points it at him, breathing furiously.

“What are you doing?” Frank sighs, with the same degree of annoyance he’d show if the guy had simply dropped his waste on the ground instead of in a bin. Matt could almost laugh at the situation if there wasn’t a actual fight going on.

Johnny clumsily swings his bottle at Frank who easily dodges, Matt stepping aside to give him room, but before neither of them can make a move, a huge man grabs Johnny and smashes his face on the counter. Johnny barely has time to realize what’s just happened before the guy pulls him on his feet again, keeping a firm grip on his arm as he pushes him on the way to the exit.

“You got two choices,” the man -  the bouncer, Matt guesses easily - says threateningly, turning to Frank, “you can walk out, or I will carry your ass out.” He gives a shove to Johnny for good measure. “Like him.”

Matt’s ready to move, already resigned to cut their little outing short, when the barmaid’s voice cuts in.

“Hey, Ringo, he’s good, man,” she says, gesturing at Frank. “He was helping me out. Can you…” She nods Johnny’s way meaningfully.

Ringo takes a moment to stare at Frank, undoubtedly assessing him and the potential threat he poses before turning to the barmaid again. “You good here? he asks her.

She nods and gestures at Johnny. “Just get rid of him, will ya?”

Ringo leaves, manhandling Johnny away like nothing, and they’re left alone.

Frank lets out a breath as soon as they’re far enough and sits back down at the bar. Matt does the same when he finally hears Ringo drop Johnny outside, allowing himself to relax.

Behind the counter, the barmaid’s already gone back to work.

“Dealing with assholes like that all the time,” she sighs.

“You shouldn’t have to,” Frank says apologetically.

“Yeah, well…” She shrugs.

Matt can feel Frank hesitate to say something else, ever the gentleman, but he seems to finally decide against it and settles his elbows on the counter. He gives a quick look to Matt’s half full drink.

“Can I trouble you for another couple of those?” he asks before Matt can think to protest.

The barmaid nods and gets them fresh drinks. Frank thanks her as Matt gives him the flattest look he can manage from behind his glasses. He rolls his eyes.

“Relax, Murdock, ’s not like you can’t handle your liquor,” he says, a small smile in his voice.

“It’s on me,” the barmaid says before he can reply, sliding their drinks in front of them.

Frank immediately starts shaking his head, trying to push a few bucks her way. “Nah, nah, that’s okay. You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s on me,” she repeats in a tone leaving no room for arguments.

Matt smiles as Frank takes a second to consider before nodding politely. “Thank you,” he says.

Matt smiles at her, thanking her too, before she goes to serve other patrons, leaving them on their own. Frank raises his beer between them silently and Matt clinks his glass against it. They both take a swig before Matt lets out a chuckle, shaking his head.

“What is it?” Frank asks.

He shrugs, still grinning. “It’s nothing, just… Can we, just _once_ , go out and not fight anybody? Like normal people?”

Frank huffs a laugh, takes another drink. “I think normal flew out the window a long time ago for us, Murdock.”

———

Another songs fades away and the crowd claps, a few people cheering.

Matt finishes his third glass and sets it down on the counter. “Alright, I think that’s it for me,” he sighs, getting up. They’ve been here an hour, which is thirty minutes more than what he’d originally planned on staying. The place and company are nice, but he’s still exhausted from the trip, and his ears are starting to buzz.

“This early?” Frank asks mockingly.

Matt smiles as he shrugs on his jacket. “I’ll be reminding you you said that when you join me in ten minutes.”

Frank chuckles. “I’d argue, but you’re probably right,” he admits. He gestures with his beer. “I’ll just finish this.”

“Sure.”

Matt finds his way to the exit through the much thinner crowd and lets out a breath when the cold air hits his alcohol-warmed face. By the time he’s reached their room, he almost doesn’t even feel any lingering tingling.

It’s a relief when he hits the covers, having changed in his sleepwear and scrubbed some of the day’s grime off his face. He hadn’t even realized he was _that_ tired until that very moment.

As he’s slowly drifting away, he almost unconsciously looks for Frank’s heartbeat. He finds it calm and regular, and soon picks up his voice too once he’s filtered through the bar’s noise.

“— you for the drinks, earlier.”

“My pleasure,” the barmaid’s voice answers. “Didn’t need saving, though.”

Frank chuckles.

“Maybe I just don’t like assholes,” he offers. She scoffs.

There’s a pause in their conversation. Matt can hear a glass clinking as she sets it down and picks another one to clean up.

“So, you got a name?” she asks nonchalantly.

“Pete,” Frank lies without missing a beat. His heartbeat doesn’t falter. “Castiglione.”

“Beth,” she says.

“Thank you for the drinks, Beth,” Frank says.

“Nice to meet you, Pete.”

They shake hands, from what Matt can tell, then the conversation dies down again. He’s almost asleep when Beth speaks up, catching his attention again. “So what brings you here?”

It’s hard to be sure since he’s not really concentrating much on them, but Matt thinks he can hear Frank’s clothes rustling as he gestures to the general direction of the motel. “Just staying over at the motel. Heard the music, and it just sounded good, so here I am.”

“To Michigan?” Beth asks a little disbelievingly.

There’s a smile in Frank’s voice when he answers, “Just passin’ through.”

“Where to?”

He shrugs. “Next place I’ll be passin’ through.”

Beth hums. “I see. A travelin’ man, huh?

He chuckles. “Yeah.”

Beth has set down her last glass and is just leaning on the counter towards Frank now. She sounds relaxed as she goes on, “Just a regular Sal Paradise, able to pick up and take off whenever you like, mh?”

“Pretty much,” Frank answers with a smirk.

“You got the man of mystery thing down, I give you that,” she says.

Frank and Matt huff a laugh at the same time, probably thinking the same thing. _You have no idea._

Finally, Frank finishes his beer and sets it down in front of him. He doesn’t move to leave, though, taking his time.

“So you come in here and defend my honor and then just vanish into the night?” Beth asks playfully.

Frank smiles, shrugs. “Nah, you didn’t need saving.”

That earns him a soft laugh. Matt hears Beth’s heartbeat quicken, probably flustered. He knows the feeling.

Frank finally gets up, catches his jacket and puts it on.

“Alright Beth, it’s been a pleasure,” he says.

“You leaving tomorrow?” she asks, a hint of nervousness in her voice that wasn’t there before. It’s not hard to tell she likes him, even without listening to her heart. 

“Probably,” Frank answers truthfully. They haven’t talked about it yet, but they rarely stay in one place more than a day. For once, they’re not even on the run, they just don’t feel the need to visit all the towns they go through. There’s not much to see most of the time, anyway.

Matt hears Beth’s nervous exhale and understands she’s gathering up her courage before speaking. “You wanna maybe grab another drink?” 

Frank chuckles and shakes his head, oblivious or good at pretending. “Nah, I think I’m good.”

“With me?” Beth adds to clarify, her heartbeat jumping a little.

There’s a pause, and Matt would be lying if he said he didn’t hold his breath waiting for Frank’s answer.

After a beat, Beth’s determination seems to abandon her and she laughs nervously. “Forget I asked.”

“Sorry,” Frank says sincerely. “You seem like a very nice woman, I’m just—”

“Taken,” she finishes, smiling understandingly judging by her tone. She chuckles. “I should’ve known. All the good guys are taken, right?”

Frank shakes his head, laughing a little self-deprecatingly. “Wouldn’t really call myself a good guy.”

As Matt tries not to think too much about the fact that he didn’t contradict her when she said he was taken, Beth laughs. “And modest too!” she exclaims faux-dramatically. “She’s a lucky woman.”

“Lucky man, actually,” Frank says, and Matt is definitely not falling asleep now. He’s not flattered, he’s not, he’s just really surprised Frank even bothered to correct her.

“Oh, I see. Mr. I-Wear-Sunglasses-Inside, huh?” she says jokingly.

Frank barks out a laugh and Matt can’t help but laugh a little too. He hadn’t even though about that.

“It’s Mr. I’m-Blind-But-I-Forgot-My-Cane-Like-An-Idiot, actually,” he says, and now Matt’s certain he knows he’s listening in.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry,” Beth groans, laughing as she buries her face in her hands.

“It’s fine,” he says, smiling. “I guess it’s a match, uh? He doesn’t know he’s dating Rough Road.”

Beth and Matt burst out laughing simultaneously.

“I guess it is,” she agrees, chuckling.

Frank readjusts his coat and nods in the motel’s direction. “Alright, I think it’s time I get going.”

“Don’t let me keep you,” Beth says good-naturedly. “It was nice meeting you, Pete.”

“A pleasure.”

Matt listens to Frank’s steps across the bar, then outside as he walks up to the motel and to their room. As he gets closer, he feels his own heartbeat quicken in anticipation.

He could pretend to be asleep and they wouldn’t talk about what he said back there. Frank would probably know he was faking, but he wouldn’t say anything. They could keep the status quo.

The door opens and closes and Frank crosses the room to the bathroom without turning the light on. Matt listens to the sink running for a while, to Frank shedding his dirty clothes and putting on his sweatpants and worn t-shirt, taking his time. He’s calm, relaxed. He clearly won’t make a big deal out of it if Matt doesn’t.

He comes back into the room and starts going to his bed when Matt decides to speak up.

“You could’ve gone with her,” he says.

It’s not reproachful. He wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. They haven’t talked about what they are and what it implies simply because it’s not something they need to worry about, unlike a lot of other things.

This road trip made it easier to not worry, when they were far away from New York, Hell’s Kitchen and their chaos. 

“Yeah, I could have,” Frank answers simply. “Just like you could’ve gone with that girl two weeks ago.”

Matt had almost forgotten about that. She had been nice, with hair smelling of strawberry and bracelets that jingled when she moved. Matt hadn’t even considered taking her up on her offer for a second.

He hums understandingly, and that’s all that needs to be said on the subject, apparently, because next thing he knows Frank is settling on top of him, straddling his hips and slotting his mouth against his jaw.

———

Frank

———

“Are we leaving today, then?” Matt’s voice breaks the confortable silence in the room. He doesn’t sound like the idea appeals to him, but not like it doesn’t either. Just curious.

Frank finishes getting his shirt on before looking at him. He’s sitting on his bed, mirroring him, early morning sunlight hitting his hair in a way that brings out the red of its auburn. It looks like a crazy bird’s nest, but even then, he’s as ridiculously attractive as ever.

“You wanna stay for a while?” Frank asks casually, bending down to put on his shoes.

Matt shrugs.

“We don’t have anywhere to be,” he says in lieu of an answer.

“You picked a weird place to get tired of moving. There has to be thirty people living here, total,” Frank remarks, amused.

“Because we do so much sightseeing when we’re in more touristic places, anyway,” Matt retorts, but he’s smiling.

“Yeah? And whose fault is that, mh?” Frank asks sarcastically, getting up to come stand in front of him. Matt raises his head as if looking at him, but Frank knows it’s in the slight tilt of it that he really sees. He smiles crookedly at him, looking like the most enticing idiot in the world.

“Yours, actually,” he says matter-of-factly, sliding two fingers in his belt loops to hold him in place. “You’re the one saying there’s no interest in country fairs and ice sculpting festivals.”

“Are we ever going to stop about that goddamn ice sculpting festival?” Frank groans as Matt laughs.

“No blaspheming,” he chastises good-heartedly.

Frank bends down to catch his mouth and shut him up, but Matt’s quicker and is up and away from him before he even realizes he’s moved.

“Anyway, we have time, don’t we?” he says, walking into the bathroom. “Why don’t we catch some breakfast first, and decide what we’re doing after that?”

Frank takes a second to answer, annoyed he got cockblocked but too proud to let it show, even though Matt probably knows already, judging by his smug tone.

“We do that,” he grumbles.

Matt doesn’t take long getting ready, emerging from the bathroom with perfectly groomed hair and fresh clothes, and looking so irritatingly handsome it takes a lot of inner-arguing from Frank not to keep him in the room for a couple more hours just for the satisfaction of messing him up.

He doesn’t, and as they leave the room Frank suddenly sees Matt’s face do that focused thing it does when he’s listening to something.

It doesn’t take long to figure out what it is, as someone bumps into him from behind. He turns around to find Rough Road Kid herself frowning at him suspiciously. She looks just as spooked as she did when he last saw her.

“You alright?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at her.

“You following me?” she says, cutting. Still as charming as yesterday, then.

“Why would I be following you?”

She ignores him, already walking away, looking back once to give him another distrustful look before quickening her pace.

“Hey, you okay?” he asks, but gets no answer for his trouble. He shakes his head, a little irritated.

“What was that?” Matt asks next to him.

Frank waves his question away. “Dunno, kids got no manners, these days.”

“And you do?” Matt says mockingly.

“Oh, shut up.”

———

The bar is just as crowded as yesterday.

The band is still here, filling the space with soft guitar and songs about long roads and setting suns. Frank likes it, but he’ll never admit it out loud in fear of never hearing the end of it from Matt. He already accuses him of being a closeted cow-boy twice a day, that would only encourage him. Anyway, judging by his small knowing smile when Frank offered they come back here tonight, he already knows.

They find a free spot at the bar and settle down. Beth is busy with other customers, so they just wait in companionable silence for a while. Matt’s face is turned towards the crowd, and Frank idly wonders what he’s listening to. By now, he’s got a vague idea of how his senses work, but it’s still hard to measure just how much he can perceive.

“Isn’t this a little bit much?” he asks before he can think better of it.

“What is?” Matt asks, turning his attention back to him. Frank gestures at everything around them.

“All this,” he says. “Isn’t it a little bit too much input?”

Matt chuckles. “I’ve lived in New York all my life, I hear gunshots on the regular, this is nowhere _near_ too much input.”

“Alright, no need to show off,” Frank says, rolling his eyes. “Just thought you might’ve gotten used to the calm of smaller cities, by now.”

“Maybe I have,” Matt hums thoughtfully. “To the calm and other things.” He flashes him a grin and Frank suddenly feels like a kid with a crush, blinded by it.

“Hey, Rough Road!” Beth suddenly chimes from behind the counter, smiling at them. “Didn’t think I’d see you around anymore.”

“The place is nice, we thought we could stay a while longer,” Frank replies easily, smiling back.

“Don’t think I’ve ever heard someone call it _nice_ before,” she feigns to ponder. “ _Small_. _In the middle of nowhere_ , yeah, but nice?”

He shrugs. “It has its charm.”

She scoffs and tilts her head as if to say _I guess_ , then turns her attention to Matt. “Hey, we haven’t been introduced,” she says. “I’m Beth.”

“Matt,” he says, offering her a handshake and his usual charming smile.

“Pleasure to meet you.” Beth puts her hands on her side of the counter and looks between the two of them with a smile. “So, what can I do for you tonight?”

“Same as yesterday?” Franks says, silently consulting Matt, who nods.

“You got it,” Beth says, then goes to get their drinks.

“What about heading south, tomorrow?” Matt offers once she’s gone, turning on his stool to face him.

Frank makes a considering sound. “Something specific in mind?”

“Just thought it might be nice to go somewhere a little warmer,” Matt shrugs.

“Cheers,” Beth interrupts as she slides their drinks on the counter. They thank her, then Frank raises his beer between them, offering a toast.

“To the calm,” Matt says, clinging his glass against it with a knowing smile.

Frank ignores the stupid bubbly feeling in his chest and nods. He takes a sip, but when he lowers his bottle he sees that Matt hasn’t touched his scotch and that he’s suddenly very still.

“What is it?” he asks, immediately on his guard and turning to scan the crowd methodically.

“I think I might’ve jinxed us,” Matt says absently. He frowns, then discreetly nods at the bar’s entrance just as a group of people get in.

They’re looking around, searching for something, or more likely someone, and pretending like they aren’t. Frank’s first thought is that they’re here for them - or at least, him - but he doesn’t let the surge of adrenaline this thought sends through his veins distract him.

“What’s the situation?” he asks under his breath.

Matt’s also shifted his stance from relaxed to full-on Daredevil and is now pretending to look at the band as he answers, “There’s seven of them total. Five with guns, and I think most of them have knives. They’ve also hidden a rifle in a coat on one of the racks. They said something about finding a girl.”

“Any idea who they’re talking about?” Frank takes a sip of his beer as he counts the newcomers in the room.

Matt tilts his head. “I think, yeah.”

Just as he says that, a panicked, feminine voice cuts over most of the brouhaha of the bar.

“Let go of me!”

Frank manages to see a mop of blond hair over the crowd just before the girl disappears in the hallway leading to the bathrooms. Her cry caught the attention of the armed strangers too, and Frank sees a woman give silent orders to the others. They move in an organized way - some kind of task force, maybe - and three of them head behind the girl.

“Let’s go,” he says, getting up, and Matt doesn’t protest, so apparently his worry is warranted.

“Man has a gun, all three have knives,” Matt says as they get closer to the bathrooms, both of them pretending to talk about something mundane, smiling and lowering their heads close to one another as if to hear each other better.

“Stay here for backup,” Frank says when they’re close enough that he can see one of the strangers is guarding the door the the women’s restroom.

Matt nods before making a sharp turn and heading for the front of the stage, disappearing in the crowd. He doesn’t even say anything to remind him not to kill anyone, which Frank finds oddly flattering.

Frank makes his way up to the man, pretending to be drunk by staggering and supporting himself on the walls.

“Excuse me, can I help you?” the man asks, not threateningly, but his eyes quickly go over him to asses potential danger.

“Uh, my friend, I think she might be a little bit sick, so I’m just gonna go check on her,” Frank says, slurring a little.

He makes a move to get in, but the man stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“I think she went home, buddy,” he says.

“She went home?” he repeats, stalling.

“Yeah, and I think you should, too.” The man’s guard is down, he’s buying the drunk act.

Frank shakes his head, feigns a small laugh. “Nah, how would she… Nah, I’m pretty sure,” he stammers.

The man opens his mouth, but a shout of pain and fear is heard coming from behind him and they both freeze for half a second. Frank doesn’t waste any time after that, grabbing the man’s coat and headbutting him before pushing him back forcefully into the bathroom.

As the man falls to the ground, Frank discovers two women cornering Rough Road Kid against one of the stalls, a knife pressed to her throat. The one he saw giving orders a minute earlier turns to them while the other one keeps the girl in place.

“Eddie?” Boss Lady asks the man on the floor, not sounding really surprised.

“You alright, kid?” Frank asks.

Rough Road Kid gives him a panicked look; she’s shaking like crazy and tears are threatening to spill down her cheeks. Right now, she looks even younger than she did earlier.

Eddie gets up behind him, moving to retrieve his gun before Boss Lady stops him.

“No shots,” she says.

Eddie puts his weapon back begrudgingly. “Nobody mentioned a guy with her,” he says with a sharp nod to Frank, raising even more questions about this whole thing.

Boss Lady shrugs a little, clearly not feeling threatened by him in the slightest, then unsheathes her own knife, quickly followed by Eddie.

Frank almost wants to let out a sigh. This road trip was supposed to get them _away_ from this kind of thing. 

There’s not much he can use around him, so he settles on his belt and takes it out of its loops, wrapping it around his forearm as Boss Lady scoffs.

“Dumbass. You’re so far over your head you can’t even see the light,” she says mockingly, not bothering to move as he steps closer to her.

“Is that right?” he mutters.

She and Eddie attack him almost simultaneously. He dodges both of them, offsetting Eddie’s balance with a push and using Boss Lady’s momentum to turn her around, twisting her knife so it’s pointing her way. He forces her to walk backwards into Eddie until they hit the wall with a grunt. Eddie remains upright but Boss Lady falls to the ground on impact.

Eddie tries to stab him again and misses when Frank sidesteps. He wastes no time before attacking again, sending a clumsy punch his way and managing a lucky hit. It only destabilizes Frank for a second, and he gets his bearings back in time to dodge another attack, causing Eddie to stab the door and get his knife stuck there.

Boss Lady’s back on her feet by that time, lunging at him while Eddie tries to get his weapon free. Frank jabs his elbow in her face, pushing her back long enough to land a few blows on Eddie before he even tries to attack him from behind. Boss Lady’s back soon enough, pain and anger causing her to throw herself at him without much coordination. Frank ducks, wraps an arm around her waist and tackles her to the ground with a grunt of effort from him and a cry of pain from her.

He’s shaken for half a second before he has to roll to the side to avoid getting stabbed in the chest by Eddie. He gets back up and immediately deflects another blow from him, using an opening in his defense to punch him hard enough to knock him out.

Boss Lady doesn’t leave him a second to catch his breath, already trying to stab him in the guts again. He stops her knife, catching her wrist and jamming his arm under her jaw to force her to back up into the wall, where he tries to get her to let go with a hand on her face. She struggles and bares her teeth for a second before he gets tired of trying and flips her around, grabbing her by the back of the neck and sending her face-first into one of the wooden stalls.

It breaks easily, wood and splinters raining down on Boss Lady’s now unconscious body laying next to the toilet bowl.

As Frank rounds what remains of the stall to get closer to Rough Road Kid and her assaillant, the latter lets her go and snarls at him before charging him. He dodges all the swipes of her blade before finding an opening and grabbing her, lifting her enough to throw her against the wall. He notices Eddie just in time to lunge at him before he gets a chance to stab him again.

Eddie lets out a furious scream as Frank pushes him back into one of the mirrors that line the wall, breaking it. Eddie’s rattled long enough for Frank to force him to slide on the side, enough that he’s now half-laying on the sinks. Eddie punches him, getting him just far enough that he can kick him in the chest and push him back against one of the remaining stalls. He straightens himself, tries to keep Frank pinned, but he’s barely standing up as it is, and Frank has no trouble getting him off and knocking him out for good by smashing his head against the sink, cracking the ceramic. He’s probably still alive, even though he’s in pretty bad shape. Frank has trouble caring right now, anyway.

The bathroom is suddenly eerily quiet as Frank takes a couple steps back to go stand next to Rough Road Kid, whose erratic breathing is the only sound in the room, soon joined by the second woman’s pained grunts when she tries to get up.

Frank offers a hand to the kid to help her up. She takes a moment to understand before she takes it, her eyes, wild and confused, going from him to the last remaining attacker.

Henchwoman manages to stand up, breathing heavily and fixing him with a dark glare, but she also stands her ground, so at least she’s understood he’s not to be underestimated.

Frank keeps Rough Road Kid close as he takes a step closer to her. He’s about to make his move when Boss Lady kicks the broken stall’s door open, becoming another obstacle between them and the exit. Frank considers the situation for a second, then choses to play it safe and opens the stall next to him, pushing the kid inside.

He hears a loud crashing noise just as Boss Lady lets out a battle cry, diving knife-first in his direction, and sees the bathroom door burst open behind the two women, the broken lock falling on the floor. Matt goes for Henchwoman - who hasn’t even had time to turn around and see him before she gets thrown to the ground by a punch to the back of the head - as Frank deflects Boss Lady’s first attack. Her momentum unbalances her and sends her staggering backwards. He punches her in her already bloodied nose, making her fall on her back.

In the meantime, Matt’s knocked out Henchwoman and is now standing next to the exit door, all balled fists, rounded shoulders and controlled breathing. He tilts his head attentively as Frank walks up to Boss Lady while she struggles to stand up. She raises her knife in a thoughtless, angry move, but before either Frank or Matt make a move to stop her, a loud _thunk_ fills the room and she falls to the ground, knocked out by Rough Road Kid armed with a big broken piece of sink.

There’s a beat of silence as the kid looks at her assaillants’ bodies with a bewildered face, then Frank turns his head to Matt. “Thought I told you to stay back there,” he grumbles.

“You were taking too long,” Matt says evenly, but Frank doesn’t really listen, already fixing his attention back on the kid.

“Who are you?” he grunts. She lets out a shaky breath. “Why are they coming after you?”

She shakes her head, sparing him a wary glance. “N-No, I’m outta here,” she stammers, going for the door.

“You stay where you are,” Frank orders forcefully. She freezes, and he sees Matt pinch his lips from the corner of his eye, probably arguing with himself over wether he should let him talk to her like that or not. He ignores him. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she says, her voice wavering. “I came in here, a-and they asked me if I wanted to party, and then I said no, and they just like, _freaked out_ on me.” She clears her throat to get some of the raspiness out, shrugs faux-nonchalantly. “I don’t know, chicks can be rough." 

He doesn’t need Matt’s senses to know she’s lying.

“Bullshit,” he growls.

“Alright, we’ll have time for that later,” Matt interrupts, forever the annoying voice of reason, earning himself a dirty glare from Frank which, if he senses, he promptly ignores. “We need to get out of here, first, there’s more of them out there.”

“What— who _are_ you people?” the kid asks accusingly, frowning at them. She’s still shaking, looking like strong wind could knock her over, but she manages to sound halfway convincing in pretending she isn’t. “Are you just— just some good samaritans who couldn’t stand by?”

Matt’s head imperceptibly turns to him, and Frank wants to punch him and his stupid sad puppy face. They’re both thinking the same thing, he’s sure of it.

“Just idiots who couldn’t stay out of trouble, that’s all,” he mutters, turning his attention back to the girl.

She looks equal parts confused and angry, and not at all like she buys it. He exhales through his nose, ignoring the throbbing pain it causes.

“I’m gonna ask you one more time, kid,” he says slowly, methodically unwrapping the belt from around his forearm. “You tell me who they are.”

Matt lets out an exasperated breath. “Come one, we have to move,” he says, gesturing at the exit, but Frank has tuned him out.

The girl doesn’t answer, visibly afraid to. Now, whether she’s afraid of him or someone else, that’s the real question.

He makes a pressing humming sound. “No?”

Her eyes are wet, her lips pressed into a thin line.

He shrugs. “Okay.”

He moves for the door, but Matt stops him with a hand on his chest.

“ _Frank_ ,” he says, low enough that the girl can’t hear him, this single word heavy with so much admonishment it’s impressive.

Frank can’t hold it back longer. “What?” he snaps. “There’s no way I’m putting our asses on the line for this brat, alright?”

“You’d leave her here? With the rest of these people?” he asks, gesturing at the unconscious bodies around them, not sounding like he believes that in the slightest.

Franks hates him a little, right now.

“She’s not _our problem_ ,” he says through his teeth.

“Wait! Wait, please,” the kid interrupts, a little panicked, making them turn to her.

With all attention on her, she seems to struggle with words for a bit. She breathes slowly in and out, trying to calm herself.

“If there’s more people out there, people like this—… I mean, you didn’t just come in here to leave me for them, did you?” she asks pleadingly.

Even though he keeps his gaze trained on the girl, Frank can perfectly imagine Matt’s questioning raised eyebrow, hear his silent, “Did we, Frank?”. He thinks about all the small towns they went through, all the nights spent in motels where they didn’t have to worry about someone breaking in to kill them.

The girl takes a step towards them. “You can help me, can’t you?” she asks softly. “You’re like them.” She takes a look at the bodies on the floor, gives a little shrug. “Better, even.”

Frank thinks about New York, about his crusade for justice. About Matt’s. He thinks about nice evenings spent drinking beers and whiskey.

“Please,” the girl says.

“Fuck it, alright,” he grunts.

Matt’s already moving, opening the door and ducking outside. Frank grabs the girl by the arm.

“Let’s go,” he says, pushing her in front of him and following.

The sound of the room’s almost deafening after the cold quiet of the bathroom. The band’s saying their goodbyes and people are cheering, whistles and claps everywhere. He sees Matt a few feet in front of them, blending in with the rest of the patrons, giving him a quick signal that he can move.

“Do exactly as I say,” he orders under his breath.

“Okay,” she says immediately, looking around nervously.

He manhandles her until they’ve reached the front of the stage, keeping his gaze moving across the room to spot the four remaining hit men. He recognizes one close to the exit, but he didn’t get a good look when they got in earlier, so he has trouble identifying the others.

Suddenly Matt is here and grabs the girl’s other arm, nodding at Frank when he looks at him questioningly. “I have her. Go distract the one at the exit,” he says.

Frank goes without missing a beat, quickly loosing sight of the two of them. He sees the man he’s looking for after a few seconds of navigating through the room. He’s scanning the crowd, leaning against the wall, but just as he’s about to go talk to him, he hears a collective gasp of surprise behind him. Turning around, he sees people parting, forming a circle around Matt and another hit man who have started exchanging blows. The girl is nowhere to be seen. Frank immediately spins on his heels and goes back over there.

Just as he reaches the end of the crowd around them, Matt delivers an impressive right hook to his opponent, sending him diving face first into the ground. Frank’s not surprised when he doesn’t get up again; he’s been on the receiving end of one of those, he knows how efficient they are.

“Behind you,” Matt says, and Frank turns around to see the exit hit man coming their way, alerted by the sound just like he was.

Frank takes advantage of the fact that he’s going for Matt to intercept him as he walks past him. He catches his arm, turns and spins him over his shoulder in one quick motion. The man’s breath is knocked out of his lungs as he hits the floor and he stays stunned for a couple seconds.

“Watch the girl, I got this,” Frank yells to Matt, not bothering to look and see if he listened and already bending to punch the man on the ground in the face.

The guy stops his second blow, pushing him off and using the spare second that gives him to get up again. Frank blocks two punches, gives them back, and as he manages to spin the man around to get him in a chokehold, he hears a gasp of fear from a few people around them. His first thought is that Matt didn’t listen and joined the fight nonetheless, but when he turns around with his opponent still struggling in his arms, he sees the bouncer, Ringo, fighting with a third hit man who had snuck up on him.

Just like he had with Johnny, Ringo doesn’t have any trouble overpowering the man, pushing him a few feet back until he’s pressed against the bar counter.

Suddenly, there are hands around Frank’s shoulders and someone’s yelling “What’s wrong with you, man?!” as they pull him away from his enemy. He shakes off the wannabe-hero fairly easily, pushing him back and returning to his fight just too late to avoid a punch coming from the guy he just let go of. Pain blinds him briefly and he reels back, fairly sure he’s just broken his nose. He gets his bearings back in time to avoid getting stabbed, deflecting the man’s blade with a hit on his wrist. As he lands a punch to the guy’s stomach, he hears a cry of pain that isn’t coming from his fight. He spares a look to see Ringo fighting two hit men, one of them having just stabbed him in the side.

He’s brought back to his own fight when his opponent tries another desperate attack, which he sidesteps before hitting him in the face with his elbow. He hears screams he recognizes as Rough Road Kid and decides he’s had enough, snatching the knife that has just slipped from his enemy’s slackened grip and jamming it in his leg. The man goes down on his knees with a pained shout and he finishes him off with a heavy punch to his temple.

Turning around, he sees Matt throwing one of Ringo’s assaillants across the room as the bouncer lifts the other one and smashes her against a wall, groaning in pain. Closer to the exit, there’s the first guy Matt had - apparently temporarily - knocked out, hitting Rough Road Kid in the face as he holds her down.

Frank catches his attention with a sharp shout and the man’s forced to let her go to be able to block his first hit. The second one lands below his sternum, knocking the breath out of him. The man’s disoriented enough that Frank has no trouble pushing him until the table behind him is digging into his back. He grabs his hair and smashes his head against it, once, twice, then a third time for good measure. The man falls down, unconscious, and Frank turns around just in time to watch Matt get one of his fancy front flip kicks squarely in one of the hit men’s face. Ringo’s in pretty bad shape, bleeding from two different places, as far as Frank can tell. He’s holding himself up by leaning on one of the large pillars that support the ceiling, leaving bloody handprints everywhere.

The last hit woman standing gets her gun out, pointing it at him, but she gets hit in the forehead with a broken stool leg thrown by Matt and drops the gun to hold her head, groaning. Frank is on her the next second, crashing both of them first into the bar, then to the ground. It’s only a half-hearted struggle from her part, as she’s already taken a lot of hits, and Frank quickly knocks her out with the butt of her own gun.

He gets up, breathing heavily, looking around to make sure no one else is about to jump out of the shadows to attack them. He sees Rough Road Kid’s head cautiously emerge from behind a table and Matt tilt his head, brows furrowed as he undoubtedly checks their surroundings too.

“We good?” Frank grunts to his attention.

Matt nods once, lips tight. “There’s more, but they’re far, for now. We should get going, though; Beth is loading a shotgun behind the bar.”

Frank grunts in agreement, stuffs the gun in the back of his jeans and gestures to Rough Road Kid. “Come on, we’re going,” he says sharply.

She only hesitates for half a second before following him, Matt behind her. They get to the coat racks and grab their jackets before Frank starts rummaging through other people’s, getting more frustrated with each one in which he doesn’t find what he wants.

“You sure you’re going to need that?” Matt asks when he realizes what he’s looking for, sounding as reluctant as Frank expected of him.

“Better safe than sorry,” he answers.

There’s a second of hesitation, then Matt sighs, resigned.

“There,” he says, pointing at a suspicious long black coat.

Frank opens it, finding the rifle tucked inside, and takes it before they leave, ignoring the worried way the girl eyes the weapon.

“Look, wouldn’t it be better if we just split up?” she offers shakily once they’re outside and walking up to the motel. “I should go, you two can—”

She’s cut off by Frank when he catches her by the arm as she tries to walk the opposite way, and she lets out a small cry of surprise.

“Please, just let me go,” she says in a wobbly voice. “Honestly, I don’t know why these people are after me!”

“Sorry, there are more of them around here, it’s not safe,” Matt says.

She doesn’t seem convinced, but at least she doesn’t try to get away again as they get to the motel. They grab their bags in record time, lucky they’d already packed most of their things for tomorrow already. Frank takes the driver’s seat after pushing the kid in the passenger’s, Matt throwing their things in the back and climbing in after them.

The car tires screech as they leave the parking, Frank’s hands gripping the wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles white. He makes a sharp turn and steps hard on the accelerator, ignoring most of the speed limit signs he sees.

“Wow, maybe calm down?” the girl exclaims, gripping the door’s handle in panic, her eyes wide and fixed on the road ahead. “Would be pretty stupid to die of a car crash after surviving that, don’t you think?”

“She’s not wrong, you know,” Matt says from behind them.

“ _Are you driving?”_ Frank snaps, ignoring the small voice in the back of his head telling him he sounds just like his father.

“They don’t know which car we’re in yet,” Matt remarks, the smartass. “Someone driving like a madman is exactly what they’ll be looking for.”

Frank is tempted to speed up even more just to be contradictory, but after a moment of inner-arguing he begrudgingly steps on the brakes.

“ _Thank you_ , jeez,” the girl sighs, rolling her eyes, making Frank want to go up to 60mph just to get the smugness off her face.

“We lost them?” he asks Matt to get his mind off that idea.

“One of them at the bar called in reinforcements, but they don’t know where we are,” Matt answers after a moment.

“Good,” Frank grunts.

Silence fills the car for a moment, long enough for them to have left the town when the girl finally speaks up again.

“Will there be more of them?” she asks, glancing at Frank. She sounds almost resigned.

He locks his jaw, thinks about yesterday, and the day before. The calm.

The fact that it’s almost definitely gone, now, leaving only familiar anger and chaos.

“I hope so,” he says finally.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have depression, anxiety, AND no attention span so I don’t know if i’m ever writing the other episodes, but maybe, who knows right? it’s not like anything matters


	2. Episode 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey i have too much anxiety to answer your comments individually but you all are very nice and i love you, i hope you have a good life <3

 

———

Matt

———

It’s something like four AM, and they’ve been driving for a couple hours when Frank’s heartbeat starts to slow in a telling way again.

“Pete,” Matt sighs.

He jolts back to full wakefulness and grumbles something incomprehensible under his breath as he puts his attention back on the road.

“That’s three times, now,” the girl says flatly from where she’s leaning against her window.

She pauses suggestively, as if waiting for one of them to say something, and when none of them do she lets out an irritated breath.

“You should really let your friend over there drive,” she says, nodding vaguely behind her, where Matt is sitting uncomfortably against the back of their seats. “He sounds more awake than you.”

Frank huffs a laugh. “Yeah, no,” he says.

“What, you don’t have your license?” she asks Matt mockingly, trying to look at him over her shoulder. “I doubt that registers on our list of problems, right now.”

When none of them add anything, she throws her hands up in frustration.

“Alright, then, at least let _me_ drive,” she says.

Frank makes a sound halfway between a laugh and and a scoff. “You ain’t driving.”

“Look, you keep falling asleep,” she says matter-of-factly. “You’re gonna drive us into some ditch, and then we’ll _freeze to death_ in the middle of nowhere.”

More silence.

Matt wonders if he should say something, if Frank would even listen. The girl is right about him not being in ideal driving condition. Even though he got out of the fight fairly unscathed, Matt can still smell the blood from a shallow cut to his hip, and now that the adrenaline’s left him, he’s pretty sure Frank’s noticed it too.

They could let the girl take the wheel, and Matt could keep a figurative eye on her while Frank slept. He wouldn’t be able to tell where they were going, but even _Frank_ can’t be stubborn enough not to see there’s logic in that option, right?

“We should stop ’til you two get some rest, at least,” the girl continues when the silence has stretched enough for her to know she’s not getting a reaction. Her heartbeat skips anxiously. There’s about zero chance she won’t try to get away as soon as she gets an occasion to. Frank knows it too, no doubt, even without being able to hear it.

“Yeah? You wanna keep watch while we sleep?” he asks sarcastically. “Make sure your friends don’t come for us when we can’t defend ourselves?”

She shrugs, tries for sincere. “It’s the least I can do after you saved my life.”

She’s lying, but Matt doesn’t even bother to point it out as Frank scoffs.

“ _Wow_ ,” he says with feigned amazement. “That bullshit of yours, what— what kind of asshole does that actually work on? I’m just wondering.”

She lets out an frustrated breath. “Fine, _fine_. You know what, forget it.” She turns back to her window. “Kill yourself just to prove a point. How very male of you.”

Matt hears Frank’s irritated sigh and can’t help a tired smile from tugging at his lips. For someone who’s just nearly escaped death, she surely has a lot of sass. That and Frank’s temper should make an interesting cocktail.

There’s a long silence, and Matt’s starting to think he’s heard the last of it when she suddenly starts talking again.

“Look, we’re in the middle of nowhere—”

Frank groans an exasperated “ _Jesus Christ_ ” and starts fiddling with the radio, ignoring her as she goes on, “—how far do we plan to run anyway?”

A random R&B song fills the car, and Matt finds himself lingering on that question.

They haven’t even had a moment to think about what to do next, how to deal with all of— this, whatever _this_ is. It’s something big, something dangerous. Those men and women at the bar, they were trained killers. Whatever that girl knows, it’s caught the attention of some powerful people.

Matt’s reminded of Fisk, of the helplessness he was constantly feeling trying to take him down. He shuts that thought out, sighs.

Who would’ve thought that kind of trouble would find them all the way over here?

———

Frank

———

Dawn is just starting to peek on the horizon when they stop on the parking lot of a motel.

The girl turns to Frank questioningly and he gives a meaningful nod at the office in front of them.

“Go get us a room.”

Behind them, there’s the rustling of clothes as Matt straightens himself with a grunt. Frank’s not sure he slept, even for a minute, but he surely was quiet for the entirety of the trip. That can’t be good— means he was lost in thought.

“Just one?” the girl asks, raising a dubious eyebrow.

“Just one,” he repeats. “Twin.”

She seems like she want to say something to that, but eventually decides against it. She’s got that same resolute face she had that night, when she was trying to get them to stop to rest.

“Hey,” Frank says, catching her attention as she gets her seatbelt off.

“ _What?”_ she sighs, turning to him.

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

She rolls her eyes, irritated, and seems to think for a second.

“Look, why can’t you just let me go?” she asks tiredly. “I mean, seriously. We got away.”

Frank is starting to feel familiar annoyance peek under his exhaustion. He keeps his gaze trained in front of him as he answers flatly, “The only place you’re going is in that office to get us a room.”

He could send Matt, but he wants to know what to expect when it comes to her, and that’s a good way of getting a general idea. It’s not really a risk anyway, since Matt will be able to tell if she tries to run.

He doesn’t turn to see her consider her options, but the next thing she says gives him a vague idea of why she took some time to answer.

“I’ll need some money.”

He gives her a look, sees her expectant raise of eyebrows, and lets out a long breath.

“Here,” Matt cuts in, leaning between their two seats to give her a few twenties.

She takes them and gets out without a word. Frank watches her go and sees her look over her shoulder one last time before getting inside the office. He just _knows_ she’s going to try something, no matter what he told her. Of course he got stuck with the most fucking stubborn kid in distress on the planet.

“ _Christ_ ,” he scoffs, exhausted.

“Don’t cuss,” Matt scolds half-heartedly from above his shoulder.

 

 

They respectively watch and listen as the girl wakes the receptionist up.

“Should’ve just left her to deal with her own assassins,” Frank grumbles.

“I know you don’t mean that,” Matt says absently. It’s even more infuriating because it’s true.

Frank sees the girl look at them again, clearly envisioning her escape. When she turns back to the clerk, she says something that makes Matt huff a tired laugh, shaking his head in disbelief.

“What’s she saying?” Frank grunts.

“She’s asking if they have a bathroom,” Matt says. “I think she’s trying to slip away discreetly.”

“Of course she is,” Frank retorts, rolling his eyes.

“Give her some credit, the kid’s resourceful,” Matt says. “She tried that too with the people at the bar.”

“Yeah? And how’d that work out for her?” he grunts.

Matt doesn’t bother with an answer. Frank doesn’t know if he’s glad or frustrated that his sarcasm almost never gets a rise out of him anymore.

“I could’ve gone, you know,” Matt says after a moment, nodding at the desk. There’s an undertone of suspicion in his voice. “I’m not covered in blood.”

Frank scoffs. “You sound sure of yourself.”

Matt doesn’t take the bait, instead waits for him to really answer.

He rolls his eyes, shrugs, says the first thing that comes to mind.

“You sounded tired.”

“Right,” Matt says, nodding. He doesn’t believe him for a second, and Frank thinks about how telling of his usual caring skills that is. At least Matt doesn’t sound offended, just like he figured it out.

They don’t say anything else until the girl comes back in the car with the keys. She tosses them at Frank, but Matt catches them mid-air - which, while annoying, also spares him the embarrassment of being too tired to catch them and getting hit in the face.

“Number seven, ‘round back,” the girl says.

Even moving his arm to turn on the ignition seems exhausting, and he does so sighing deeply. He has a cut on his side he hadn’t even noticed until a few hours ago, his knuckles are red and splintered, and his nose is radiating pain in his whole skull. Could be worse, could be _way_ worse, he knows, but still. He feels old.

He gets them around the motel and parks in front of the number seven. In the short distance between her seat and the door to their room, the kid manages to look around them anxiously five times.

He gets the door open as Matt carries their bags over, then nods at the girl to get in.

“Let’s go.”

He checks their surrounding too before following them inside, more out of reflex than immediate concern; Matt would be able to tell if they were being watched.

He starts locking the door as soon as it’s closed, assessing the lock. Not very solid. Another thing to take into account.

“You should sit down, we’re gonna be here a while,” he hears Matt say behind him. He sounds fairly calm, but Frank suspects he’s just better at hiding his worry than him.

When he turns around, the girl is sitting stiffly on the bed further from the exit, her gaze lost somewhere in front of her. Her hands are shaking slightly, laying on her knees, and her eyes are red. Not as impervious to the situation as she wants them to think she is, then.

Matt has put their bags on the second bed and is now standing next to it, his glasses giving nothing away as to what he’s thinking. Frank’s learned to distinguish the different tilts to his head, though, so he knows he’s listening to him intently.

“You lost your ring,” he finally says after a few seconds of tense silence.

Frank grunts in acknowledgment. He noticed. Of course he noticed. It’s weight has never been heavier than now that it’s not here.

Hoping Matt gets the message that he really doesn’t want to dwell on the subject, he leaves for the bathroom, giving the girl a suspicious glance as he goes. She doesn’t look alert enough to make a run for it - not right now, at least - so there’s at least that.

He leans above the sink, wincing when the movement pulls at his wound, but distracts himself by splashing water on his face, scrubbing the blood off. A nasty bruise is forming around his nose, so if the pain wasn’t telltale enough, he’s now sure it’s broken.

“You okay?”

Matt is standing behind him, leaning against the now closed door.

Frank’s first thought is that they shouldn’t let the girl out of their sight, then he remembers who he’s with.

He sighs and gets his hands on each side of the sink, looks at Matt in the reflection. Take away his tired face, the few drops of blood on his shirt, and Frank could almost pretend that this is just another day. That they’re going to get breakfast in a random diner, and that Matt’s going to ask him where he wants to go next.

He shuts down these thoughts, rounds his shoulders. They’re not on vacation anymore.

“I should’ve killed them,” he says, gaze fixed on Matt’s glasses as if he could make him see the challenge in his eyes.

Matt lets out a tired sigh. “You don’t mea—”

“Yes, Murdock, I _do_ ,” Frank cuts him off, turning around to face him, anger rising within his chest. “I should’ve killed them when I had the chance, because _now_ they’re gonna come for us, and all of this running will have been for nothing.”

He’s raised his voice, finally letting rage and stress and worry— and something like helplessness and the knowledge that he always knew this had to end one day - take over.

Matt doesn’t even flinch.

“I don’t believe you,” he says, and Frank _hates_ that he can sound so sure, hates that he’s so fucking faithful and that, even after Frank’s countlessly given him reasons not to, he still manages to believe in him more than he’ll ever believe in himself.

“Well you _should_ ,” he snarls.

“I don’t believe you’d give up everything so easily,” Matt retorts determinedly. He gestures to encompass everything around them. “You fought for this, this life, your freedom. Is this all it takes for you to throw it all away? Come on, you’re better than that.” 

Frank crosses the distance between them in two strides, gets up in his face. “What if i’m not, mh?” he growls. “You heard the girl: _I’m like them_. What if this is just who I am, and you’re wrong about me? Ever think about that, Murdock?”

Matt opens his mouth, undoubtedly to protest, but Frank cuts him off,

“Don’t you get it already? Isn’t all of _this_ ” - he gestures wildly at their whole situation - “enough of a sign from the fucking universe that I can’t have a normal life?”

He breathes angrily in Matt’s face and absently notes warmth spilling down his side. He reopened his wound.

A second passes, and when Matt finally moves - slowly, like he would with a scared animal - to get a hand on Frank’s chest, he has an intricate mix of sadness and understanding on his face.

“You’re not like them,” he says, low enough that Frank wouldn’t be able to hear it had he been only a couple feet further.

He closes his eyes in frustration. He wants to push him away, wants him to agree with him, to say he’s always known that Frank could never be anything else than a murderer. That would be easier than having him _care_.

“Maybe I’m just better at fighting than at living,” he says, his anger deflating as fast as it rose, leaving him tired and hurting.

“Maybe you just have more practice at one than the other,” Matt says, and Frank opens his eyes to see him offer a tentative smile.

He huffs a joyless laugh.

“It might be too late to learn, then.”

Matt’s face turns determinate. “There’s still a chance for you to get back to your life,” he says, and oh, how Frank wishes he could say that with as much conviction. “We can get the girl to safety, we can make it without spilling blood.”

“That’s awfully optimistic, you know that?” Frank tries to joke, but his voice is raw and comes out resigned.

“You have to trust me,” Matt says.

He sounds so certain that if Frank didn’t know better, he would probably just think he was naive. But he knows him and his absurd faith in people, and he knows he truly believes what he’s saying. Maybe even enough for the both of them - at least for now.

“Come on,” Matt says softly, probably able to tell he won’t get anything better than a vague grunt of agreement today and wanting to change the subject. “We should get back in there, the girl is starting to get ideas of escapism.”

“I’m surprised she even still with us,” Frank grumbles, stepping back so Matt can open the door.

The girl startles when they come out of the bathroom, and Frank notes she’s moved to the end of her bed, probably to listen in on their conversation. She already looks less distressed than she did when they got in, that smartass glint back in her eye.

“Lovers’ quarrel?” she asks cynically.

She’s got balls, he’ll give her that.

He doesn’t even bother with an answer, instead goes for the bed where their bags are and gets his one open. He rummages through it for a second before getting a bottle of alcohol and the first aid kit out, wincing when that pulls at the cut on his hip.

“You’re bleeding”, Matt says factually from behind him.

“I _know_ , Murdock, _Jesus Christ_ ,” he snaps, hissing the last part when moving sends another wave of pain through his abdomen.

“Need help?” Matt asks, impervious to the heat in his voice.

Frank’s first reflex is to bark at him to fuck off, but spending all this time on the road must have at least given him some semblance of impulse control, because instead he lets out a very long breath.

“I can do it myself,” he says, only a little clipped. “Get us something to eat?”

He sees Matt tilt his head, probably considering Frank’s injury and his capability of keeping an eye on the girl and stitch himself up at the same time. He seems to trust him enough to do both, though, because he ends up nodding and leaving the room without argumenting.

Frank locks the door behind him, then makes his way back to the bathroom, gesturing at the girl as he goes.

“Get in there,” he says gruffly. He doesn’t have Matt’s ears, so he’ll have to settle on having her there while he works.

She follows after a beat of hesitation. He’s a little surprised she does so without argumenting, albeit warily, but he surely isn’t complaining. He’s not exactly in a patient mood, right now.

“Sit down,” he instructs.

She does, and he lays the kit down on the counter next to the sink.

“ _So_ ,” she says, drawing the word out. “You got a name I could use?”

He looks at her, sees she seems at least halfway serious, then sighs.

“Just call me Pete.”

“Pete,” she repeats, testing the word out. She nods. “I’m Rachel.”

He doesn’t say anything to that, instead opens the medicine kit and gets a thread and needle out.

“And your friend, it’s Murdock, right?” she asks with feigned nonchalance. “First name or last name?”

He narrows his eyes at her. She’s not exactly subtle at fishing for information.

Instead of gracing her with an answer, he starts working on getting his torn shirt off - a task rendered rather painful by all his injuries.

“Wait, what are you—” she starts, then cuts herself off when she sees the wound on his side. She makes a face. “Oh, yeah, that’s nasty isn’t it?”

He gets the bottle of whisky open, braces himself, and pours a healthy amount of it on his hip, hissing at the burn.

“You really need me here for this?” Rachel asks, looking at him with a mix of disgust and sympathy. “I can leave.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffs, then gestures at the towels hanging on a rack in front of her. “Get me one of those.”

She obliges, and he wipes at the cut a few times, getting crusted blood out of the way so he can see what he’s working with. It’s longer than he thought, starting near the dip of his hip and curling around his side. He curses under his breath, then grabs the needle and twists uncomfortably so he can get started.

Holding this position alone is tedious, and with the added pain of repeatedly stabbing himself, he only lasts about two minutes before swearing loudly through his teeth and letting the needle go, letting it hang limply from the couple stitches he’s managed to do so far.

His gaze lands on Rachel in the reflexion, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else than here, and he can practically hear Matt’s voice in his ear calling him a stubborn bastard.

He lets out a long-suffering sigh and turns to her.

“Look, I’m gonna need you to do this for me, alright?” he says, catching her off-guard, judging by the look she gives him.

“What?” she croaks.

He gestures at his hip. “I need you to stitch this up.”

“ _Stitch_ — what, I’m a girl, so that means that I know how to _sew?”_ she says, frowning at him in offense, and he rolls his eyes _hard_. She shakes her head. “No, _no_ , I don’t have the first _idea_ how to macramé your nasty-ass wound.”

“I don’t give a _shit_ what it looks like,” he snaps. “You just close it up, do it now.”

She makes a face, but eventually gets up and comes to stand in front of the sink, turning the faucet on.

“What are you doing?” he asks, irritated,

“Washing my hands,” she says flatly. “You want me touching an open cut with _these,_ after what we’ve been doing?”

She has a point, but he’ll be damned if he ever admits to it out loud, so he just waits silently until she’s done and kneels next to him.

“Alright, here goes,” she mumbles, catching the needle.

He feels it go through his flesh a first time, relatively smoothly, and tightens his grip on the sink to keep himself from flinching.

“Is this like, normal behavior for you? Like, getting stabbed, I mean,” she says conversationally.

He waits until she’s done pulling at her first stitch to grumble, “Usually I try to avoid the getting stabbed part.”

She falls silent, hopefully because she’s concentrating on her task, and after a while Frank almost thinks he’s heard the last of it, but then of course she speaks up again.

“Look, I really am grateful for everything you did, okay?” she says. “I mean it. And I’m sorry about ruining your— your _vacation_ , or whatever—”

Frank startles when she stabs too deep, causing him to let out a sharp shout of pain followed by a long string of swears. 

“ _Sorry, sorry, sorry_ ,” she says quickly, fumbling with the needle as Frank gives her a nasty look. She gets her grip back and continues, stammering a little, “Um… And I know you want answers— anyone would… But I _genuinely_ have no idea what this is, alright? I promise you.”

He lets out an exasperated breath. Had he been in a better mood, he probably could have admired her lying skills.

But he’s not. And she won’t stop _talking_.

“I think these people must have mistaken me for somebody else, ‘cause… L-Look, I’m just some college student in town for an interview at the university, and…”

She pauses, exhales shakily. Definitely a very good act.

Her voice wavers when she says, “Hey Mister, uh… Pete. Look, I don’t want any more trouble, okay?”

He looks down at her, finding her with wet eyes and a wobbly bottom lip. She looks back at him pleadingly.

“My parents are gonna start wondering where the hell I am, so can you please, _please_ just let me go?” she asks.

“You done?” he asks flatly.

She sniffles soundly. “ _Please_ , listen to me, okay? I _need_ to go—”

He cuts her off, “With the stitching? Are you done?”

She’s surprised enough she forgets to act like a frightened child, looking at him and then at his wound, leaning back on her haunches.

“ _Oh_. Uh… Yeah, I’m done.”

He doesn’t waste any time getting the cut bandaged, cleaning it hastily one last time before wrapping his waist in gauze. Matt will probably scold him for it later, but he doesn’t feel like staying there any longer.

He gets back to the room, uncaring of wether Rachel follows or not, and goes to put the first aid kit back in his bag. As he gets the gun out of the back of his jeans and drops it on the mattress, he hears her walk behind him, and when he turns around, she’s fumbling with the lock on the door.

He grabs her by the back of her coat before she can slip out and manhandles her back into the room as she cries out in panic.

“Get your ass in your goddamn bed,” he growls, practically throwing her on it, what little he has left of patience dwindling quickly.

Rachel looks at him from where she’s lying on the mattress, a mix of fear and anger in her eyes. He ignores the part of him that feels guilty, and the one that reminds him Matt isn’t going to be happy about this, and turns around to dig some zip ties out of his bag.

“Gimme your hands,” he says.

“What are you doing?” she asks, eyeing the zip ties warily.

“Gimme your goddamn hands,” he repeats threateningly.

She lifts her hands in front of her, watching with wide eyes as he ties them together. “No, look, hey, _hey—_ ”

“Shut up,” he says, tying them to the headboard.

He grabs her legs, forces her to lay down as she stammers, “Hey, you really don’t have to do this, okay? I’m not gonna run again, I promise.”

He straightens himself, looks down at her. “You want your shoes on or off?”

The glare she sends him manages to pack an impressive amount of hatred. “ _Screw you_ ,” she snarls.

“Suit yourself,” he shrugs, turns around and heads for the bathroom as she starts to strain against her bonds.

He gets the shower running, starts working on unbuttoning his pants when he hears her call out disbelievingly, “What are you doing?”

“Taking a shower,” he answers matter-of-factly. “I suggest you get some rest.”

She chokes on her indignation, splutters, “You— you can’t just leave me like this!”

He gets his boots off with a satisfied sigh.

“Okay, you wanna take a shower?” Rachel says from the other room, starting to raise her voice threateningly. “Well don’t mind me, then, I’ll just stay here, _and let people know that Pete_ — whatever-your-last-name-is - _tied me up on a bed—_ ”

She’s started talking loud enough to be audible through the walls when Frank comes back into the room. As he grabs some duck tape from his bag and tears a piece of it off, she’s going off about waking everyone up, but when he turns around and she sees it, her screaming turns into a very long string of _no, no, no, no, no,_ up until he has her mouth taped shut.

The silence is a _blessing_.

———

He comes out of the shower feeling marginally better.

Rachel’s muffled protestations can’t be heard anymore, so she must have finally given up. He gets dressed, checks his phone for the time and sees it’s been almost an hour since Matt’s left.

Not taking any chances, he calls him.

“Where are you?” he asks immediately after the line clicks on.

“Sorry, I had to walk a while before finding something that was open this early,” Matt says.

Not dead or kidnapped, then. Good. Frank lets himself relax again.

“You alright?” Matt asks, as good as usual at reading him.

“I need to punch something,” Frank grumbles, eliciting the first true laugh from him since this whole mess started. It’s doing things to him he’ll never admit out loud.

“Is she giving you trouble?” Matt asks, amusement clear in his voice.

Frank feels a little guilty lying to him, but the embarrassment of recognizing she _is_ wins out in the end. “I can handle a _kid_ , Murdock.”

“ _Frank_ ,” he sighs meaningfully.

“What?” He tries for clueless, but he can somehow hear Matt’s annoyance in the silence that follows. He rolls his eyes. “She tried to run, alright? What was I supposed to do?”

“I feel like whatever I could tell you would be better than what you did,” Matt says flatly.

“You don’t even know what I did,” Frank retorts.

“Enlighten me, then.”

He gets a hand through his hair, looks at his reflection in the fogged up mirror. Leave it to Matt to make him feel like a kid that got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Zip tied her to the bed,” he grumbles.

“ _You tied_ — Okay,” Matt says, sounding like he’s trying really hard not to burst out. “Cut her loose _now_. I’m on my way, anyway.”

He hangs up, and Frank curses under his breath. He puts his phone back in his pocket and leaves the bathroom, finding the girl exactly how he left her, except her expression in now closer to mildly annoyed than furious.

Telling himself he’s not doing that because Matt asked him to, he goes to cut her free of the headboard.

She peels the duck tape off her mouth and gives him a look as he grabs one of the chairs in the room.

“You know, that actually really hurts,” she says, raising her bound wrists in front of her to show them off.

“Yeah, well, cry me a river,” he sighs, placing his seat at the end of her bed and sitting down.

He watches her for a moment, trying to decipher her expression as if he could find his answers somewhere in the sarcastic tilt of her brow. She returns his look evenly.

“You know, a lot of people could have gotten hurt, last night,” he says.

She narrows her eyes at him. “ _You’re_ the one telling me that?”

He sets his jaw.

“Okay,” he says, calmer than he feels. “Let’s do this one more time, okay? Just once.”

He pauses for emphasis, sees her slip behind a mask of obliviousness. 

“Who are those people, and why are they coming after you?”

She rolls her eyes, lets out a frustrated breath. “How many times do I have to tell you? _I don’t know._ ”

“Because you’re a college student, right?” he asks cynically. “Just in from out of town?”

Her lips part around an explanation Frank doesn’t care to hear.

“Why aren’t you screaming right now? Why didn’t you say anything to that woman at the front?” he asks, waving his hand around, vaguely indicating everything around them.

Rachel’s face sours, telling him he’s on the right track.

“See, I think you’re full of shit, Rachel. I think you’re hiding something,” he says, leaning on his elbows to look at her. “What is it?”

She forces herself to shrug in feigned ignorance. “No? I’m not.”

That’s it, he’s done with listening to Matt for today.

“Okay,” he says, getting up. “Let’s do it my way.”

As he gets closer to her she gets a panicked look on her face and, thinking he’s reaching for her hands again, turns around to curl around herself protectively. That gives him perfect access to her back pocket, out of which he has no trouble fishing the two boxes he noticed last night. Her protesting turns frantic as soon as she understands what he’s doing, confirming what he already knew; that these are the cause of all of this.

“ _What are these?_ ” he asks, raising them out of her reach.

“They’re— It’s a school project, I told you!” she exclaims, finding a lie remarkably easily.

“Nah, that’s bullshit,” Frank growls, opening one of them and emptying its content in his hand, finding a film roll. “What’s in there? Pictures?”

When this doesn’t get him any closer to getting an answer, he rounds his fist around the roll and threatens to crush it. 

“What’s in the _goddamn_ —”

“No, _no!_ Don’t! Please!” Rachel says desperately, raising her hands in a vain attempt to calm him down.

“What’s in the _goddamn pictures?!_ Answer me!” he barks.

“ _I don’t know,_ okay?” she snaps, her voice breaking a little. “If these maniacs chasin’ after us could give me like, _three seconds_ , I could explain that and they could have them!”

Frank narrows his eyes at her. “You gonna have a talk with them?” he asks sarcastically. “You think they wanna talk to you?”

Rachel looks at him with wide, helpless eyes, her breathing heavy from panic and fear.

“Let me explain something,” he says lowly, leaning in, making sure to sound as serious as the situation calls for. “The only reason you’re even _around_ right now is because of us. They’re coming after us _three_ , now, that’s where you got _lucky._ ”

She averts her eyes at his accusing tone, grumbles under her breath, “I’m not so sure about being lucky.”

“Oh, believe me, you are,” he scoffs, leaning back against his chair. “You’re _damn_ lucky you found us. See, Murdock, he’s a fucking _saint_ , he’ll die before he lets someone get to you.”

“And you? What’s your deal?” she asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

He huffs a joyless laugh. “I dunno, I guess… I guess I’m old-fashioned? If it’d been a man those assholes were going after, I’ll tell you what, I would’ve bought a beer, I would’ve sat back, I would’ve watched the show. But see, they… they came after _you_. A little girl.”

He sighs, looks over at her. She’s looking like she’s trying really hard to figure him out, and the thought almost makes him laugh. Yeah, good luck with that.

“I had to… _get involved_ ,” he sighs, more to himself than to her, now. “It’s my own damn fault.”

 _God_ , he just wants to sleep and wake up a week earlier, when all of this wasn’t his problem. Matt and him would be waking up in a new town, by now, if they hadn’t played hero. They’d be arguing about wether they were getting pancakes or waffles for breakfast, for Christ’s sake.

They’d be rotting with guilt while doing it.

He lets out another breath, and with it goes what little fight’s left in him. “It is what it is, I guess. That’ll teach me, being one of the good guys.”

“You sure about that?” she asks cynically.

He gives her a tired look.

“Come again?” he asks flatly.

“I heard you two talk, earlier,” she says accusingly. “I heard what you said, that you should have killed those guys.”

He freezes.

“You know, from my perspective, it really looks like your friend there, _Murdock_ , is the only thing keeping you from going full-on killing spree,” Rachel continues sharply, clearly seeing an opening and aiming to hurt. “Would you have even hesitated for one second, if he hadn’t been there? ‘Cause it sure looks like you’re just waiting for an excuse.”

He wishes he could get offended, snap at her, tell her she doesn’t know shit about him— but the thing is, he’s not sure she’s wrong. Without Matt there to shut the thoughts down, he can’t help but doubt.

He gets up.

“I’m gonna go out,” he says, ignoring how small his voice sounds compared to only a minute earlier. “Okay?”

Rachel sees him grabs the duck tape and immediately starts backing off against the wall, shaking her head frantically. “ _No, no no_ , you don’t need that again, trust me!”

He raises an eyebrow at her, giving the roll of tape a quick considering look. “No? I don’t need this? You sure?”

She nods. “Promise.”

“Yeah?” 

Messing with her is kind of a dick move, but— well, he _is_ kind of a dick, and he isn’t feeling particularly charitable right now, anyway.

“Yeah,” she repeats.

He ignores her furious, mumbled insults as he gets out the room.

———

It takes him longer than he would have liked, thanks to the uncooperating woman at the office, but eventually he has the keys to the adjacent room and the start of a plan. He gets the crowbar from the back of the car, and when he comes back into the room, Matt is sitting on the bed and Rachel’s hands are untied, both of them eating sandwiches.

Frank apparently interrupted them talking, both of them falling silent when he enters, but they don’t pick up the conversation again. He takes two seconds to adjust to the situation, then gives Rachel a warning look when she starts to look too smug about being free again.

He crosses the room, avoiding to look at Matt for now. He doesn’t exactly feel up to seeing the disapproving face he’s sure he’ll find there; he still feels raw from the talk he had with Rachel and can only take so much judgement in such a short amount of time.

“Don’t let me interrupt you,” he grumbles, opening the closet door.

“There’s food for you too,” Matt says, his voice betraying nothing of what’s going on in his head.

Frank doesn’t answer, instead adjusts his grip around his crowbar before slamming it in the wall. It doesn’t do much damage, but _damn_ if it’s not satisfying getting some of his pent-up emotions out.

“Uh… What’s with the new crazy?” he hears Rachel ask between two dull thuds.

“Don’t mind him,” Matt says.

———

Frank wakes up in a cold sweat, heartbeat racing, a weight on his chest holding him down.

He moves to grab the wrist of whoever’s trying to kill him out of reflex, ready to throw them off, but his attacker is quicker and grabs him before he can.

“Hey, hey, it’s me,” Matt says calmly, the hand he has on his sternum pushing him back against the mattress.

It takes a few seconds, but Frank eventually remembers where they are.

He looks around the room. The curtains are drawn, but it’s still clear outside; he must have only been out for a few hours.

Matt’s glasses are off, and there’s a chair in front of the bed where he was probably sitting before Frank woke up. In the second bed, Rachel’s back is facing them, her breathing slow. Asleep.

“You were having a nightmare,” Matt explains, voice low. “I thought I’d wake you up, didn’t mean to scare you.”

Frank waves his apology away. “What time is it?” he asks.

“Around two,” Matt answers.

Frank groans, sits up on the bed. “For Chrissake, Murdock, thought I told you to wake me after two hours,” he grumbles.

“You needed the rest.”

“And you don’t?” he snaps, louder than is suitable if they want to avoid waking Rachel up.

Matt gives him one of his stupid shrugs that mean _Doesn’t matter_. Frank hates those, but he’s too exhausted to have this argument with him again right now.

“You take the bed,” he says, moving to get up.

“I can—”

“Just take the fucking bed, Matt, _Jesus Christ_ ,” Frank sighs frustratedly.

Rachel makes a sound, making them both freeze and listen for a sign that she’s woken up.

When there’s nothing else for a while, Frank lets out a breath.

“She asleep?”

Matt nods. “Soundly.”

Frank lets his shoulders relax again.

There’s silence for a while, as neither of them makes another attempt at moving and instead just consider each other. Frank knows there’s a lecture coming, he can feel it, so when Matt opens his mouth, he’s ready to tell him to shut up.

“You shouldn’t worry about what she said,” Matt says.

“Well _you_ —” He cuts himself off abruptly when his words really hit him, frowning. “Wha— You’re not scolding me for zip tying her?”

Matt huffs irritatedly. “I figured that could wait. You really _shouldn’t_ have zip tied her, though.”

Frank is rolling his eyes before he’s even done talking. “She tried to run, what was I supposed to do?”

“Oh, _I don’t know,_ Frank. What were you, a _trained marine_ , supposed to do to keep a _teenager_ from escaping your watch?” Matt asks flatly, then adds more seriously, “How is she supposed to trust us if you do stuff like that?”

So he _is_ getting lectured after all, apparently. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophesy.

“I don’t need her to _trust_ me, I need to keep her _alive_ ,” he growls between his teeth.

“And you can’t do both?” Matt asks, annoyed.

“I don’t have _time_ for both, Murdock, this is _war_ —”

Rachel makes a humming sound and turns around on her bed and he shuts up abruptly.

He lets a dozen seconds pass before nodding at her questioningly.

“Asleep,” Matt confirms.

“Alright,” Frank grunts, swinging his legs off the side of the bed to get up. “Take the bed, get some sleep. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

“ _Frank_ ,” Matt sighs, not sounding as angry anymore.

“Don’t argue with me on this, Murdock,” Frank retorts.

“I won’t, I just— I got sidetracked. You really shouldn’t let what she said get to you,” he says gently, and Frank stops next to him. He must have been close enough to hear the end of their conversation, earlier.

Frank looks down at him as he turns his face his way. His eyes land somewhere near his collarbone, but it’s close enough for Frank to get the message. He’s concerned.

He sighs and rubs at the stubble on his chin. “If even that kid’s able to see it, maybe there’s some truth to it, you know?” he says, resigned.

“Well maybe she just doesn’t see right, you think about that?” Matt asks, the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

Frank raises an eyebrow at him, feeling his defense starting to crumble despite his best efforts. “And _you_ do?”

Matt shrugs nonchalantly. “Better than most people.”

And Frank can’t help but laugh. The banter is comforting, realizing that their weird patchwork of a relationship doesn’t fall apart at the seams in such a situation is comforting, and knowing Matt trusts him is— well, _more_ than comforting, but he doesn’t dare put words on that just yet.

“Alright, get your ass in bed,” he says to change subjects before Matt hears his heart do something stupid. “We need you rested for when these fuckers catch up with us.”

Matt complies without argumenting, this time.

“You know, I’m sure you’d like her if you spent any time really talking to her,” he says as Frank sits down in the chair to keep watch.

He scoffs.

“There’s no _really_ talking to her,” he says. “Has she even told you her name?”

“I know she told it to you too, I heard it when I was leaving,” Matt chides lightly.

“Just making sure she gave both of us the same one,” Frank shrugs.

Matt chuckles. “That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think?”

“Depends. Is Rachel her real name?”

Matt doesn’t say anything, so Frank has his answer.

“Right,” he says, adjusting himself more comfortably in his chair. “She’s playing you, Murdock. She can tell you’re the good cop, out of the two of us, and she’s going to use it against you.”

Matt doesn’t add anything for a while, and Frank’s almost started thinking he’s offended him and he’s decided to ignore him when he says,

“I told her my first name was Mark.”

Frank snorts. “Seriously? That all you could come up with?”

He hears Matt’s smile in his voice when he answers, “I’m not really good at this.”

“If it’s any comfort to you, I don’t think she believed you,” Frank says, chuckling to himself. He shakes his head disbelievingly. “ _Mark_.”

“First thing that came to mind,” Matt admits, laughing too.

Their muffled snickering is the only sound audible in the room for a while, much like teenagers at a sleepover, and that thought sends Frank in another fit of exhaustion-induced laughter.

It eventually dies down, and he lets out a content sigh.

“Pete and Mark, huh?”

Matt snorts.

“Yeah… Just two guys in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

———

Frank watches the incredibly suspicious van at the other end of the parking lot through a crack in the curtains.

“How many?” he asks.

“Five. The woman from the bar is there,” Matt says.

“Good,” he grunts, then moves away from the window.

He gets one of the two guns he has tucked in his jeans and holds it out for Rachel before Matt realizes he’s doing it. “You know how to use that?”

She considers it for a second then turns away stubbornly. “No, and I don’t want to.”

“Is this really necessary?” Matt asks cynically.

“You know there’s bad guys out there, and pretty soon they’re gonna be in here, mh?” he asks, looking expectantly between the two of them.

“She’ll have no use for _that_ ,” Matt hisses, gesturing at the gun.

“You sound awfully sure of yourself,” Frank retorts.

Matt shuts up, but makes it very clear he’s not happy about it.

Rachel looks at him, then at the gun, and finally takes it reluctantly.

“Good choice,” Frank says, then moves back to the window to go check on their stalkers again.

“They’re talking,” Matt says, coming to stand beside him.

“What are they saying?”

He tilts his head, frowns in concentration.

“They recognized our car,” he says. “The woman is talking about someone, a man— They were hired to do this.”

It’s not exactly new information, but at least they’re sure of it now.

“Can we _please_ just leave?” Rachel asks from behind them.

Frank narrows his eyes at her. “What did I _just_ say to you? There’s people out there that wanna kill you.”

He moves to look through the peephole and hears Matt inhale sharply beside him.

“Rachel—”

“You’re gonna move, and let me _leave_ ,” Rachel says, undoubtedly trying to sound authoritative.

Frank turns around and sees she’s now standing up and pointing the gun at him.

He huffs mockingly, “Is that right?”

“Rachel, please,” Matt says, slowly raising his hands in appeasement. “You don’t have to—”

She trains the gun on him when he takes a step towards her. He freezes, and despite being a hundred percent _certain_ she’s not going to do anything, Frank feels himself tense up.

“ _Move,_ ” she repeats intently.

Frank shoulders Matt out of the way, putting her attention back on him, making it seem like he’s doing it out of anger rather than concern. “I’ll tell you what, you wanna shoot me, _shoot me_ ,” he says, voice hard.

She’s shaking. Even if she did shoot, it’d be a miracle if she managed to hit, even from such a short distance.

Eventually, she lowers the gun and lets herself fall back on the bed, looking like this took all the strength out of her.

“That’s right,” Frank grunts. “Not so easy, is it?”

He gets his own gun out, ignoring Matt’s sour face. If they survivre this, he’s sure he’ll be getting an earful soon enough.

“They’re coming,” Matt says after a couple seconds, switching to battle-mode in the blink of an eye. “Four of them, one’s staying in the car.”

“Then let’s go,” Frank says.

He nods at Rachel to get her moving, then smashes the lightbulb of the only remaining functioning lamp in the room, plunging it into darkness.

He follows Rachel through the hole he’s made between their room and the one on the other side of the motel, and as he turns around to close the closet doors behind them, sees Matt take off his glasses as he ducks into the bathroom. He’s not exactly happy about leaving him on his own, but he also knows how ridiculously good he is, so he has to trust he’ll be able to handle this. They don’t have much room for maneuvering, anyway, so this is the best plan they have.

Rachel curls around herself in the corner of the room as Frank takes position next to the closet, and they both listen.

There’s a crash as the hit men kick the door in, followed by a few silenced shots. Frank tenses up. He hears the almost inaudible clicking sound of someone trying to turn the lights on, without success, then there’s steps on the ground as they advance into the room. He flinches when a wave of bullets flies past him, shot through the closet, but he doesn’t move, waiting for his queue.

It comes a second later, when he hears a pained grunt, then the sound of a fight breaking out as Matt takes on the first person to enter the bathroom. He bursts out of the closet, taking aim and shooting as soon as his view’s cleared. It’s harder than it would be with good luminosity, but there’s light from the parking lot lamp posts spilling in from the open door, so he manages to make out a silhouette and shoot them in the knees in the split second before they react. There’s a pained shout as the person falls to the ground, and by the time they’re raising their rifle his way again he’s already on them, kicking them in the face _hard_.

He spins around to go help Matt with his two opponents, but a bullet hits the door frame right next to his face and he throws himself on the ground under the window. He forgot about the one in the car.

He puts his gun back in his jeans in favor of the unconscious man’s rifle, returns fire a couple times, but there’s not much else he can do, and half of his mind is still on the sounds of fighting he hears coming from the bathroom.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says under his breath. If he manages to crawl under the bed to cross the room, maybe he can—

Matt stumbles out the bathroom with a split lip and brow, favoring his left leg and breathing heavily. No one else follows, so Frank guesses he won his fight, despite not exactly looking like it.

“Okay?” he asks over the sounds of shooting.

“This one’s still conscious,” Matt says in lieu of answering, nodding at the man lying next to Frank.

He smashes his nose with the butt of the rifle, asks, “And now?”

Matt doesn’t answer, instead takes a few steps closer to the door but doesn’t get in the line of fire. He listens in, probably gauging the distance between them and the shooter.

“I can get around him if I go out from the back,” he says finally, nodding in the direction of the hole in the closet. “I just need time to round the building, and a distraction.”

“We don’t exactly have _time_ ,” Frank grunts, swearing loudly when a bullet hits the ground a few inches away from his foot.

“And I don’t exactly see another way that doesn’t involve getting _shot_ ,” Matt growls, baring his bloody teeth.

Frank considers their situation for half a second before smashing the window that’s right above him with the rifle, shielding his face from the glass shards. “There, you have your way,” he says.

Matt considers this, then nods understandingly. “And that distraction?”

Frank fires at the man in the car. Matt’s already moving without him having him to tell him anything, leaping above the bed then through the broken window. Their van offers enough cover for him to slip away if Frank keeps the shooter’s attention on him, so he does just that, firing a couple more times before nearly getting his ear blown off for his trouble.

As he exchanges fire with their attacker, he realizes that, counting the two hit men Matt fought in the bathroom, they’re still missing one of the four he said had left the car.

“Shit, _shit_ , _fuck_ ,” he says between gritted teeth. The last one could have figured it out and be going for the other room, the room where Rachel is, _alone_ — 

Suddenly, the shooting stops, and he waits another five seconds before taking a cautious look outside. No one fires at him, so he hopes that means Matt got to the shooter. He takes his chances anyway, sprinting off to round the building and hopefully take the last of them by surprise.

As he guessed, he sees Boss Lady kick the door to room number twenty-four in as he turns the corner. She points her gun inside and says something, but without Matt's ears he can only guess it’s some snarky one-liner.

He forces himself not to charge her mindlessly, even with every one of his instincts screaming at him to just go for it, and is careful to stay silent as he slips behind her.

He cracks his rifle against the back of her head and she goes down, offering him a view of a very scared-looking Rachel. She still has the gun he gave her, but it’s almost falling out of her hand as she just looks between him and Boss Lady with wide, panicked eyes.

“Gimme the gun,” he grunts. Won’t do her any good when she’s in this state anyway.

She gives it to him, and he tells her to get their bags as he goes around Boss Lady’s body to grab her foot.

“Let’s _go_ ,” he growls when Rachel just stands there, aghast.

She ducks into the other room and he follows, slowed down by the weight of his prisoner. He soon catches up to her, though, because she stops in her tracks when she sees the three unconscious hit men.

“Hey, you okay?” he asks, pausing to look at her.

“Are they _dead?”_ she whispers, horror creeping into her voice.

“Just knocked out,” he says. “Come on, we gotta move.”

He takes another step before getting frustrated with dragging Boss Lady behind him. He bends over to pick her up, and finds the task rendered way easier when Matt suddenly appears next to him to help him.

“Police are on their way,” he says as they carry her to the car.

“Then we better hurry up,” Frank says. “Go help with the bags.”

Matt lets go and Frank gets the back doors of the van open. He throws Boss Lady carelessly in the back, hears Matt say “Wait _, she’s_ —” and then she kicks him the chest. She manages to grab his gun in the split second during which he’s stunned, and tries to shoot him in the stomach. The bullet hits concrete after he barely manages to deflect the shot, though he does so by getting it through his hand first. The pain is white-hot, but he doesn’t have time to linger on it as he’s forced to move out of the way when she shakes him off and fires again. He ducks around the car as a bullet whistles past his ear and sees Matt manhandle Rachel behind the hood and into relative safety.

He follows them hurriedly, pulling the car door open behind him just in time to avoid getting shot in the back.

He hears her gun click empty a few times and immediately gets up to follow her as she starts to stumble her way to her own car.

“We don’t have time! Fr— _Pete!”_ he hears Matt shout behind him. “We have to go! The police—”

Frank ignores him, gets his remaining gun out and shoots Boss Lady in the thigh. He’s had enough of playing nice.

She goes down with a grunt of pain and he catches up to her as she tries to crawl away.

He kicks her in the side, forces her to face him as he points his gun at her, but suddenly there’s a hand on his arm, pulling him back.

“Hey, hey, listen to me, _Frank_ ,” Matt says, impressively still focused enough to remember to whisper his name. “The police will be here any minute, we have to—”

The sound of a car engine starting up makes both of them turn around. Rachel is in their van, hastily pulling out of the parking space, and Matt was too busy worrying about _him_ to notice.

“No, no, _no, Rachel!”_ Matt shouts, uselessly running up to the car as if able to stop it by hand. “Don’t do this!”

She gives them the finger and speeds up, tires screeching as she goes for the parking exit, leaving both Frank and Matt standing there like idiots.

Frank hears a police siren and is abruptly pulled out of his stunned daze, turning to see a first police car enter by the other end of the parking lot. He has about one second to make up his mind.

Matt is standing close enough to their room, he can probably make a run for it using the hole in the wall. The police are too far for them to have seen his face, he can still—

“Murdock, run,” Frank says under his breath, keeping his eyes trained on the police car approaching.

“I’m not leaving you,” Matt says determinedly.

“You’ll be more useful out there than inside a cell,” Frank growls. “ _Go_. Hurry.”

It takes him two excruciatingly long seconds, but eventually Matt turns around and disappears inside. It’s a miracle in itself, but Frank doesn’t have time to savor the victory, as an officer gets out of the car and points a gun at him.

“Drop the gun!” he orders. “ _Drop the gun!”_

A second officer goes after Matt, and Frank can only hope he’s not too injured to outrun her.

He lets go of his gun and drops to his knees, doing as he’s told and getting his hands behind his head, gaze lost in thin air.

Up until now, he was pretty sure this night would end with someone dying, but he’s not sure this is an improvement.

———

Matt

———

Matt isn’t familiar with the layout of the town like he is with Hell’s Kitchen’s or New York’s, so following the police cars taking Frank, Rachel, and the five hit men to the precinct almost proves impossible.

He can’t be out in the open, since his face is covered in blood and he’s pretty sure he looks like a serial killer, and he can’t use rooftops either since almost all the buildings he encounters are small houses without fire escapes. So he sticks to the shadows and follows what he manages to pick from the police transmissions, which isn’t much given there’s a total of two police cars for the whole town.

At least he’s had the presence of mind to pick his bag up as he escaped, so he’s not _completely_ helpless. Sure, he only has his wallet, phone and clothes - and cane too, but he’s not sure there’s any use to that, at that point - but what matters is that the police _doesn’t_ have them. It’s as close to comfort as it gets, for now.

He loses track of time, but when he eventually manages to make it to the precinct, it sounds like Frank, Rachel and their assailants have already been here a while. Luckily, the building’s mostly surrounded by trees that muffle potential sounds coming from elsewhere, so he shouldn’t have too much trouble listening in.

He soon identifies the voice of the hit men’s leader in a room with two other people, and when he scans further into the building, he can pick up two heartbeats too slow for their owners to be conscious, so probably belonging to some of her men. There’s a total of ten people scattered around the building, but he has no way of knowing for sure how many of them are officers. Maybe if he got closer…

He makes up his mind fairly quickly and approaches the building from one of the sides that’s facing the forest, staying low as he does so. He has no plan yet, everything still too jumbled in his mind for him to think straight for a second and come up with one, but he needs information first and foremost.

“—they said that if I screamed they’d kill me,” he hears Rachel say, and immediately tunes in to that conversation. She sounds like she’s crying, but her heartbeat tells him she’s faking.

“It’s alright, you’re safe now,” a feminine voice says, one he recognizes as the officer that came after him earlier.

“Thank you,” Rachel says, wobbly. “I thought I was gonna die.”

She dissolves into tears as the officer comforts her gently. Matt would probably roll his eyes, if he could. She clearly has no qualms about throwing them under the bus, even after what they’ve done for her. He kind of sees Frank’s point, now.

Speaking of Frank, Matt immediately finds his familiar heartbeat near the two unconscious ones, so probably in a cell next to the hit men’s. What he doesn’t expect is for him to be talking, and to him, nonetheless.

“—me, don’t try anything, alright? I swear, Murdock, if you get caught trying to get us out I’ll kill you myself.”

Matt barely keeps himself from letting out a relieved breath. If he’s able to make threats, it means he hasn’t completely given up yet.

“If you can hear me, Matt, don’t try anything,” he continues. He’s probably been repeating similar sentences for a while now, just in case Matt could hear him. “I got this, okay? I just need to make a call, and then we can get out of here—”

“Hey, what are you whispering over there?” one of the hit men growls accusingly.

“Leave it, the guy’s crazy,” another one says.

Frank ignores them and launches into another loop of warnings, but goes quiet when a door opens in the room and a voice says, “Alright, your turn.”

Matt listens as two officers surround Frank and lead him to the same room where the hit men’s leader was, just a minute earlier. They swap the two of them, and soon enough Matt understands that one of the heartbeats there belongs to a doctor. She gets to work treating Frank’s injured hand, judging by his muffled grunts and quicker heartbeat.

Matt is starting to feel his own injuries too, now that the adrenaline’s worn off. The leg that got a nasty hit during his fight is protesting holding him up for so long, so he allows himself to sit down against the precinct’s outer wall. There’s no window near him that could potentially cause him to be found, and there’s nothing in front of him except trees, so that’ll do for now.

In the cells, he hears the woman being dropped off with the rest of the hit men.

“I don’t want to hear any of you, that clear?” the officer says as she closes the cell door.

“Crystal,” the woman grunts.

They wait until the officer’s gone to start talking.

“What’s the plan, Marlena?” a first man asks. Matt files the name away.

“We wait,” she says flatly. “They’re coming to get them, anyway. We’ll be free by tomorrow.”

Matt sets his jaw. He hates the familiar feeling this sentence induces in the pit of his stomach. He’s had his share of powerful, rich people abusing their power.

Rachel’s voice reaches him again, and he focuses on it when he’s sure the hit men aren’t going to say anything else of interest.

“—can’t even bear to think about what there were planning on doing.”

She exhales shakily. The heartbeat of the person she’s talking to betrays nothing, not even sympathy, so there’s at least a chance they’re not buying her story.

She goes on, “And then, all those other people showed up, and everything went to _hell_ , and then I saw a chance to get out, so I ran to the van, and I was driving away… and that’s when you guys showed up.” She lets out a long breath. “I’ve never been so happy to see anybody in my life.”

“So,” a masculine voice says, “you don’t know who they are? Or why they were fighting?”

She sniffles. Matt has to admit, she sounds fairly convincing.

“Look, I’m just a kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Sheriff,” she says.

There’s silence for a while as the man considers this.

“That right?” he finally asks, unconvinced.

Her heartbeat jumps anxiously.

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, and I’m _sixteen_ , so should we even really be having this conversation, right now? I mean, maybe you wanna call Child Services to come down here and get me?”

The Sheriff takes a while before talking again.

“What can you tell me about the other guy, the one that got away? Any idea where he might be?”

Matt perks up.

Rachel huffs disbelievingly. “How would I know?”

“You spent quite some time with them, from what I understand,” the Sheriff says. “Maybe they mentioned something, a hideout, anything.”

“I dunno,” she says, uncaring. “Seemed like they were on some kind of trip, like a honeymoon for psychos, or something.”

The Sheriff hums thoughtfully. There’s more silence, then finally, Matt hears his chair scrape against the ground as he gets up.

“I’ll be right back with you,” he says, not exactly in the comforting way, and judging by Rachel’s quickening heartbeat, she picked up on that too.

The Sheriff makes his way across the precinct to the room where Frank and the doctor are.

“You done with this one?” he asks as he gets inside and closes the door behind him.

“Well,” the doctor says, “I’ve done what I can here, but I’m pretty sure that hand’s broken. He needs an x-ray to be sure.”

“It’s fine,” Frank grumbles before she’s even done talking.

No one says anything for a moment, but Frank’s heartbeat suddenly quickens and Matt tenses up, ready to run in if needed. He hates not being able to tell exactly what’s going on. If he was closer, without a wall between them, he would be able to feel the heat of their bodies moving, know what they were doing. Instead he only has his ears.

“You need to go anywhere straight away?” the Sheriff asks cynically.

“No hospitals,” Frank answers quickly. Too quickly.

“So you’re refusing medical treatment?”

There’s curiosity in the Sheriff’s voice.

“That’s right,” Frank says, stupidly stubborn, as always. “Guess that works for both of us, huh?”

“It’s up to you,” the doctor chimes in, not sounding very concerned about his well-being. “Good thing you’re left handed, I guess.”

Her heartbeat moves around the room, and when she talks again she’s closer to the Sheriff.

“Like I said; lucky or… one hell of a shot. And looking at this one I know which I’d guess,” she says.

Frank’s heartbeat isn’t very telling, as always, but he definitely doesn’t like getting studied like that.

“Maybe you should send ‘em all to the hospital, get these off your hands, Roy,” the doctor adds, her voice lower, aimed at the Sheriff alone.

“This is our town,” he says determinedly.

“And they ain’t from it,” she notes sarcastically. She waits a while, and when she doesn’t get any answer, sighs. “Not my place to tell you your job.”

The door opens, closes, and her heartbeat joins the other officers’ in what must be the bullpen. The Sheriff stays.

“You wanna explain any of this to me?” he asks.

Frank doesn’t say anything. The Sheriff moves around the room.

“You know where your friend might be?” he pushes. “He can’t have gone very far, you know? We’re gonna find him eventually.”

Maybe Matt would have appreciated the irony in that statement, had he been less exhausted.

Frank remains silent, and since the Sheriff leaves the room after only a few minutes of insisting, he’s smart enough to have figured out he’s not going to get anything out of him if he doesn’t want him to.

Matt hears the doctor start to patch up the other hit men whose injuries aren’t as serious as Marlena’s or Frank’s, and meanwhile the officers get to work getting all of them in the system. Time blurs a little, even though Matt tries to stay alert for most of it. He can’t leave until he knows what they have planned for them.

At least no one died, so they can only charge them with destruction of property, endangering the life of others, attempted murder, assault—

Maybe he should stop thinking about that for now.

“Can I get my phone call, Sheriff?” he hears Frank ask as he’s getting escorted back to his cell, and he suddenly snaps to attention.

The Sheriff stays silent for a while, but eventually hums in agreement. “Dobbs, help me get him to the phone.”

They get him seated in the bullpen and Matt hears the clicks as Frank presses the numbers.

“Can I get a little privacy?” he grumbles.

After what’s undoubtedly a silent debate, the Sheriff and officer get a few feet away.

Frank’s heartbeat quickens as he waits for an answer, and Matt almost jumps when he hears the line click on and a tired voice say, “Madani.”

 _Oh_. That’s what he meant when he said he could get them out.

“It’s Pete,” Frank says. “Castiglione.”

There’s no answer, which is worrying, but he continues,

“I got a problem, and I need your help. Some people came after me, and I made kind of a mess.”

Madani makes a sound halfway between a gasp and a sigh.

“I’m in Ohio, police precinct in a small town called Larkville,” Frank says.

She scoffs disbelievingly. “What, and _I’m_ your one phone call?”

Frank sighs. He doesn’t really sound happy about it either. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Frank, you can’t just kill people when you feel like it,” Madani says sharply.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” he says, almost offended that’s what she assumed. “All of them assholes are just fine.”

Well, that might be exaggerating a little, but if it helps him getting her to help…

“Look, I just figured you and your… Your _high-powered_ friends, you wouldn’t like it if I just resurfaced,” Frank says with feigned nonchalance.

“Forget it,” Madani says immediately. “You dont exist anymore, we buried you. Your get-out-of-jail-fee card was a one-time deal, Frank, you’re a new man with your own problems.”

Matt feels his heart sink. There goes their plan.

“You want the name of a good lawyer, maybe I can recommend you one,” Madani says with finality.

“ _Come on_ , I don’t need a goddamn lawyer, I need your help,” Frank says, frustrated, and this is as close as begging as Matt’s ever heard from him.

“Frank, you’re no longer part of my life,” Madani snaps. “Do _not_ call this number again.”

The line goes dead, and both him and Frank are left listening to deafening silence.

“Murdock,” Frank says, clipped, and Matt almost wants to answer him, even though he knows he can’t hear him. “If you’re there, don’t— Don’t get involved, alright? I’ll figure something out.”

Matt hears him put the phone down, and the Sheriff comes back.

“Nobody home,” Frank says, resigned.

Matt feels useless.

The Sheriff sighs.

“You know, you’re in pretty big trouble,” he says.

“You don’t have that much against me, Sheriff,” Frank says, almost challengingly.

The Sheriff scoffs. “You think so? We found a rifle in your car, as well as a perfect little serial killer tool kit, which, if I’m to believe that girl over there, you were planning on using on her. That, and you and your friends—”

“Wouldn’t exactly call them that,” Frank grumbles.

“—could’ve gotten a lot of people hurt, tonight.”

“But we didn’t,” Frank says matter-of-factly.

“That’s not how it works, I think you know that,” the Sheriff retorts. “Come on, you wanna tell me what’s really going on?”

Frank lets out a breath.

“I think you need to listen to the doctor, Sheriff,” he says. “You care about these people? Mhm? ‘Cause if you do, you need to let us go.”

As he says that, Matt hears a car pull up in front of the precinct. It’s somewhere around three AM, so this is odd on it’s own, but it gets even weirder when the person inside doesn’t move to get out, simply sits there.

“You know I can’t do that,” Matt hears the Sheriff say, but he doesn’t really listen anymore, more interested by the newcomer.

Focusing on the car, he hears the ruffle of fabric, then the click of a phone.

“I found them,” a man’s voice says. “Larkville police precinct. Get ready.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, just hangs up, and Matt feels a cold sweat go down his spine.

He needs a plan, and fast.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was horrible to write i'm never doing this again, or at least not while caring that much, there was so much to take into account, everything had a butterfly effect on the rest of the chapter, it was awful ok
> 
>  
> 
> (also i guess sorry there’s no pulling bullets out of butts in this version? i forgot to get Frank shot in the previous chapter (that’s it. that’s my excuse.))


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